2013 PENNSYLVANIA STATEWIDE HIGH SCHOOL MOCK TRIAL COMPETITION

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Tatum Zillias

SPONSORED BY THE YOUNG LAWYERS DIVISION OF THE PENNSYLVANIA BAR ASSOCIATION

Written by: Paul Kaufman & Jon Grode

Revised Version November 16, 2012

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Problem Questions & Contact Information Introduction and Acknowledgments Case Summary Criminal Complaint and Probable Cause Affidavit Transcript of Proceedings before Issuing Authority Information Arraignment Memorandum and Opinion Stipulations Applicable Law Jury Instructions Verdict Form List of Witnesses Witness Statements Emerson Turnkin Quinn Baxter London Packard Tatum Zillias Micah Estratton Reese Dentner List of Exhibits Exhibit 1: Exhibit 2: Exhibit 3: Exhibit 4: Exhibit 5: Exhibit 6: Exhibit 7: Exhibit 8: Exhibit 9: Exhibit 10: 20 24 28 32 36 40 44 ELS Catalog Page for Fightin Phil Artistic Rendering of Franklins Trench Construction Site Drawing MOU between HUD, City of Philadelphia and Project Z Term Sheet between ELS and Project Z for Crane Rental Official OSHA report re: crane collapse Weather reports taken from August 31st (3 different times) Article by Reese Dentner Trench Warfare Arty Dents Manifesto Letter from City of Philadelphia dated August 22, 2012 i i iii 1 3 4 5 6 9 11 13 18 19

Problem Questions & Contact Information

Questions concerning these case materials should be sent to David Keller Trevaskis at the Pennsylvania Bar Association (PBA). Case material questions will be answered by the Mock Trial Executive Committee. Questions regarding mock trial procedure, including any questions involving the Rules of Competition or Rules of Evidence, should be directed to your District or Regional Mock Trial Coordinators. Please make sure you are using the most updated version of the case: REVISED VERSION NOVEMBER 16, 2012. Answers to legitimate and non-repetitive questions will be posted periodically in a supplemental memo on the mock trial website www.pabar.org under the Young Lawyers Division (YLD) link. You may begin submitting questions anytime. The deadline for submitting questions is noon on January 16, 2013. The final update will be posted no later than January 18, 2013. Questions must be sent in writing using one of the methods listed below. Please be sure to include return contact information in the event we need to reach you to clarify a question. No questions will be considered unless submitted under this procedure . E-mail: david.trevaskis@pabar.org Fax: 717.238.7182 (David Trevaskis)

Introduction and Acknowledgments

Welcome to the 2013 Pennsylvania Statewide High School Mock Trial Competition - the 29th year of one of the top secondary level academic competitions in the Commonwealth! The competition, which commenced in 1984, is sponsored by the Young Lawyers Division of the Pennsylvania Bar Association (PBA/YLD). It provides high school students with firsthand experience of the American judicial system. The Mock Trial Competition is one of a series of law-related and civic education programs conducted by the PBA to demystify the law for Pennsylvanians, including Freedom's Answer, I Signed the Constitution, Project PEACE, Law Day and Stepping Out for Seniors. This year's case, Commonwealth v. Tatum Zillias, is a criminal action charging a real estate developer with reckless homicide in the deaths of two people at a construction site following the collapse of a construction crane. The case was written by Jonathan A. Grode and Paul W. Kaufman. The pair co-wrote the 2011 and 2012 mock trial problems and co-wrote the national problems in 2010 and 2012. Mr. Grode (Temple University James E. Beasley School of Law Adjunct Professor) also adapted and modified the 2007 mock trial problem and wrote the 2008, 2009, and 2010 mock trial problems. Mr. Kaufman was a four time Delaware state champion mock trialer in high school is a current member of the National High School Mock Trial Championship Board of Directors. Jane E. Meyer, Esq., a prior Mock Trial Committee Chairperson, performed final editing of this years case in collaboration with Mr. Grode and Mr. Kaufman. Our sincerest thanks go out to Mr.

Grode, Mr. Kaufman and Ms. Meyer for their tireless and enthusiastic creation and editing of this years problem. Mr. Grode thanks Roberta West (LEAP Program Advisor Temple University) for her tireless support of the program. Importantly, Mr. Grode also thanks his wife, Jayne Bird, who tolerates his ongoing obsession with mock trial drafting, notwithstanding the fact that he promises each year that this one will be the last he works on. Mr. Kaufman thanks his wife, Sarah, for her support, counsel, and unparalleled patience, and he thanks United States Attorney Zane David Memeger and Chief of the Civil Division Margaret L. Hutchinson for their remarkable support of high school mock trial in Philadelphia and throughout Pennsylvania. Mr. Kaufman and Mr. Grode dedicate this years case to those who lost their lives at the Miller Park tragedy in 1999 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The authors also want to extend their deepest gratitude to artist David Fox for taking the time out of his busy schedule to bring the vision of Franklins Trench to reality. His professional work can be found at www.davidfoxartist.com. The authors also thank Professor Edward Fallone of the Marquette University Law School for the inspiration for this case. They are also deeply grateful to Arlene Fisk of the United States Attorneys Office, John Doyle of the Philadelphia District Attorneys Office, and Stuart Haimowitz of the First Judicial District for their assistance in conceiving and calibrating the case. Credit for the criminal law in this case should be given to them, but any errors or necessary distortions are ours alone. The authors also thank Veronica Finkelstein of the United States Attorneys Office, a great friend to mock trial at all levels throughout the Commonwealth and the nation, for her editing and expertise in the field of construction law and practice. Thanks also goes to the Chair of this years Competition, Traci Naugle, Esq., for her efforts in organizing and implementing the many facets of this competition. The Mock Trial Committee would also like to express its appreciation to Jacob Gurwitz, Esq., current PBA/YLD Chair, and Robert Datorre, Esq., the PBA/YLD Chair Elect, for their support of the competition. Additionally, the YLD thanks David Trevaskis, PBA Pro-Bono Coordinator for his continued involvement and experienced guidance in implementing the 2013 Mock Trial Competition. Finally, we thank the hundreds of volunteers who annually contribute their time and energy to the overall organization and running of the program. Last, but certainly not least, we thank the PBA staff, headed by Executive Director Barry Simpson and Deputy Executive Director Fran ORourke, and the many PBA staff members who provide valuable time and talent throughout the mock trial season. Without their assistance, this competition would not be the tremendous success that it is each year. Special thanks go to Maria Engles, the YLD Coordinator, who serves as the main point of contact for the entire program. We hope you find these materials interesting, and wish you all the best of luck!

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Case Summary
On August 31, 2012, as the high wind remnants of Hurricane Isaac swirled through the Delaware Valley, the workers on a major urban renewal project in Philadelphia called Franklins Trench were racing to finish the critical part of their project: a new, state-of-the-art roof for the building. Around 3:30, a gust of wind caught the final panel mid-lift, and in seconds, the largest crane on the East Coast, Fightin Phil, lay in ruins. Mangled beneath the pile of twisted metal that once was a crane were the bodies of Arty Dent, a squatter who had lived in the trench, and Grace Hopper, a federal construction official. A project that was originally heralded as an innovation in modern urban planning had become one of the Citys most unfortunate tragedies. Franklin Trenchs former hero and public face became a villain. Her/His name is Tatum Zillias, and s/he stands trial for murder. The story of what history will know as Fightin Phils Fall started with a trench, a 50 foot deep abandoned fissure in the heart of the Art Museum area of the city more than two blocks long. But where some saw a gash in the fabric of the city, Tatum Zillias saw a foundation, a space deep and wide enough to accommodate the guts that make a high-rise building run. If Zillias had succeeded, Philadelphia would have had the most modern public housing complex in the world. However, what Zillias and many government officials did not want to admit was that Franklins Trench was already home to scores of squatters who had been residing in this underground cut-out for almost 40 years. Zillias broke ground in summer 2011. However, as the project continued, problems mounted. Zillias was concerned that the numerous delays that had occurred would prevent the project from meeting a bonus deadline for completing the project by October 31, 2012, which was needed in order to make Franklins Trench financially solvent. Worse, the project was a jointventure with the City of Philadelphia and the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Mayor and HUD Secretary were scheduled to conduct a very public walkthrough right before the November election. By mid-August, 2012, Zillias was on the site all day, every day, obsessed with every aspect of the project. Workers were running around the clock, and worksite accidents were occurring at an alarming pace. The squatters, facing the impending loss of their home, became desperate, and their acts of sabotage became more serious. On August 31, 2012, as the remnants of Isaac barreled through the northeast, two large stateof-the-art solar and wind turbine roofing panels were scheduled to be lifted onto the top of the structure. Zillias was concerned that if the roof was not in place, tremendous damage would be done to the structure, pushing the project back beyond salvation. The squatters were concerned that once the panels were in place, there would be no turning back. The worksite was pure chaos, and in a moment of confusion, someone made the fateful call to proceed with the lift. Now a jury must determine whether Zillias efforts to push the construction forward caused these two deaths and, if so, whether s/he manifested an extreme indifference to the value of human life in so doing. At trial, the Commonwealth will present three witnesses. Emerson Turnkin, the construction site supervisor at Franklins Trench; Quinn Baxter, expert witness and OCIS supervisor; and London Packard, the self-proclaimed leader of the Franklins Trench Squatters. The defense will also call three witnesses. Tatum Zillias, the defendant; Micah Estratton, Fightin Phils crane operator and expert witness; and Reese Dentner, an investigative reporter.

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PLEADINGS

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : MUNICIPAL COURT OF PHILADELPHIA : PHILADELPHIA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA : v. : Docket No.: MC-51-CR-71499-2012 : : Charges: TATUM ZILLIAS, : Murder (3rd Degree) (2 Counts) Defendant :

PROBABLE CAUSE AFFIDAVIT

I, Detective Barbara Potopowicz, Badge 200103, of the Philadelphia Police Department, 9 th Patrol District, do hereby state: 1. I accuse:
Tatum Zillias, who resides at 2200 Pennsylvania Ave., Philadelphia PA.

CRIMINAL COMPLAINT AND

2. The acts committed by the accused were: ** MURDER IN THE THIRD DEGREE COUNTS 1-2

The accused did cause death to another recklessly under circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to the value of human life (18 Pa.C.S.A. 2502) . . . in that the accused did order a construction crane to lift a load that it could not handle, under the totality of the circumstances, despite being aware of facts that should have led the accused not to do so. In ordering that the lift be undertaken under those circumstances, the accused did manifest a conscious disregard for an unjustified and extremely high risk that her/his actions might cause serious bodily injury, as manifested by the collapse of the crane and the loss of its load, which together directly and proximately caused the death of two persons, to wit, Grace Hopper, Arthur Dent.

3. The accused committed these acts against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and contrary to the Acts of the General Assembly,
18 Pa.C.S.A. 2502.

4. I ask that a warrant of arrest or a summons be issued and that the accused be required to answer the charges I have made.

5. I verify that the facts set forth in this Complaint are true and correct to the best of my knowledge, information and belief subject to penalties of 18 Pa.C.S.A. 4904, relating to unsworn falsification to authorities.

Date:

November 2, 2012

/s/ Barbara Potopowicz

(signature of the complainant)

AND NOW, on this date, November 5, 2012 I certify the Complaint has been properly completed and verify that there is probable cause for the issuance of process.

/s/ Edward Fallone Edward Fallone, Municipal Court Judge Issuing Authority

Clerk of Courts Original

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : MUNICIPAL COURT OF PHILADELPHIA : PHILADELPHIA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA : v. : Docket No.: MC-51-CR-071499-2012 : : Charges: TATUM ZILLIAS, : Murder (3rd Degree) (2 Counts) Defendant :

Transcript of Proceedings before Issuing Authority

1. Defendant Tatum Zillias, who resides at 2200 Pennsylvania Ave., Philadelphia PA., was arrested on November 6, 2012 and charged by Complaint with two counts of Murder in the Third Degree, 18 Pa.C.S.A. 2502(c). 2. A Preliminary arraignment for Defendant Tatum Zillias was held before the undersigned at 1301 Filbert St., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on November 6, 2012. 3. At the preliminary arraignment, the Defendant was advised of her/his right to apply for assignment of counsel and was given a copy of the Criminal Complaint. 4. At the preliminary arraignment, bail was set at $5,000,000 based on the evidence presented at that time and the Criminal Complaint previously filed with the Court. The request for 10% bail posting made by the Defendant was granted. 5. On November 13, 2012, a preliminary hearing was held before undersigned at 1301 Filbert St., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Defendant was present and was represented by counsel. The Commonwealth was represented by the assigned Assistant District Attorney. Detective Barbara Potopowicz was sworn and testified for the Commonwealth. 6. At the conclusion of the preliminary hearing on November 13, 2012, the Defendant was held for court on the charges of Murder in the Third Degree. 7. Bail was continued in the amount of $5,000,000. AND NOW, on this date, November 15, 2012 issuing authority has been properly completed. I certify the transcript of proceedings before /s/ Edward Fallone Edward Fallone, Municipal Court Judge Issuing Authority

Clerk of Courts Original

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : MUNICIPAL COURT OF PHILADELPHIA : PHILADELPHIA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA : v. : Docket No.: MC-51-CR-71499-2012 : : Charges: TATUM ZILLIAS, : Murder (3rd Degree) (2 Counts) Defendant :

INFORMATION
The charge(s) having been bound over for court by the Municipal Court Judge following a Preliminary Hearing, The District Attorney of Philadelphia County by this Information charges that, on (or about) Tatum Zillias First Count: did, under circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to the value of human life, and consciously disregarding an unjustified and extremely high risk of death or serious bodily injury, proximately cause the death of Grace Hopper; Second Count: did, under circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to the value of human life, and consciously disregarding an unjustified and extremely high risk of death or serious bodily injury, proximately cause the death of Arthur Dent; All of which are against the Act of Assembly and the Peace and Dignity of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. , December 7, 2012 , in said County,

/s/ Arlene Fisk___________

Citation(s): THIRD DEGREE MURDER, 18 Pa.C.S.A. 2502(c)

Arlene Fisk, District Attorney

Clerk of Courts Original

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : MUNICIPAL COURT OF PHILADELPHIA : PHILADELPHIA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA : v. : Docket No.: MC-51-CR-71499-2012 : : Charges: TATUM ZILLIAS, : Murder (3rd Degree) (2 Counts) Defendant :

Arraignment
I, Tatum Zillias, have been advised by the District Attorney of Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania that I am charged by Information with Murder in the Third Degree (18 Pa.C.S.A. 2502(c)). I have been advised of my right to have an attorney represent me at all hearings and the trial of these charges. I have been advised and fully understand that I/my lawyer have/has the right to request discovery or disclosure from the District Attorney within fourteen (14) days of todays date. I have been advised and I fully understand that I/my lawyer have/has the right to file with the Court any pre-trial application for relief in the form of a single omnibus pre-trial motion within thirty (30) days of todays arraignment date. I hereby enter a plea of charges and request a trial by

Not Guilty to the above Jury . Trial is scheduled for the

.

February 2013 Term of Criminal Court

Date: December 13, 2012

Tatum Zillias
Defendant

/s/ Veronica Finkelstein

Attorney for Defendant

/s/ Stuart Haimowitz____________

Attorney for the Commonwealth
Clerk of Courts Original

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : MUNICIPAL COURT OF PHILADELPHIA : PHILADELPHIA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA : v. : Docket No.: MC-51-CR-71499-2012 : : Charges: TATUM ZILLIAS, : Murder (3rd Degree) (2 Counts) Defendant :

MEMORANDUM AND OPINION Defendant Tatum Zillias moves to dismiss the indictment charging her/him with Murder in the Third Degree, 18 Pa.C.S.A. 2502(c). Defendant argues that the indictment and the evidence against her/him in this matter is insufficient to show the required mental state, or mens rea, for this crime. The Court denies defendants motion, and the matter will proceed to trial. The sole question before the Court is whether the allegations against the Defendant could constitute malice sufficient to sustain a conviction of Murder in the Third Degree. The standard for malice is well-established: Malice consists of a wickedness of disposition, hardness of heart, cruelty, recklessness of consequences, and a mind regardless of social duty, although a particular person may not be intended to be injured... Malice may be found where the defendant consciously disregarded an unjustified and extremely high risk that his actions might cause serious bodily injury. Commonwealth v. DiStefano, 782 A.2d 574, 582 -583 (Pa. Super. Ct 2001), quoting Commonwealth v. Cottam, 616 A.2d 988, 1004 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1992). Notably, the District Attorney has not charged the Defendant with the lesser offense of Involuntary Manslaughter.1 Based on public statements that the District Attorney has made, this decision is an attempt to avoid a compromise verdict by the jury. The Court offers no comment on the wisdom of this charging decision other than that the Commonwealth is entitled to exactly what it demands: the jury must either find a malicious Murder in the Third Degree or acquit the Defendant entirely.2 Defendant Zillias contends that the allegations against her/him are insufficient to show malice, as defined above, and thus that he must be released immediately. The Court disagrees. Murder in the Third Degree is a felony, unlike Involuntary Manslaughter, and the distinction between mere reckless behavior and that which is so reckless as to constitute
In addition, the Defendant here has indicated s/he will not request that the jury be instructed on a lesser offense, including Involuntary Manslaughter. 2 By contrast to Murder in the Third Degree, which requires proof of malice, the charge of Involuntary Manslaughter requires that the Commonwealth prove only traditional recklessness, i.e. that Defendant consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the death or serious bodily injury would result from his conduct. Commonwealth v. Ruby, 838 A.2d 786 (2003) (Pa. Super. Ct. 2003), citing 18 Pa. C.S.A. 302(b)(3). Alternatively, Involuntary Manslaughter can also be proved showing gross negligence, i.e. that an individual should have been aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that death or serious bodily injury would result from his or her actions. See Ruby, 838 A.2d at 788-89, citing 18 Pa. C.S.A. 302(b)(4). Neither, charge, of course, requires proof of an actual intent to kill.
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malice is not an easy one to define. It is fair to say that they represent a spectrum of potential criminality. At one end are matters like Ruby, where an otherwise excellent parent reacts to a tantrum by lightly striking her childs chest, only to have the childs heart suddenly and unpredictably stop forever. In such cases, or in cases where mere negligence or foolish ignorance is at issue, we have found the defendant not guilty as a matter of law. At the other end are cases like Commonwealth v. Kellam, 719 A.2d 792, 797 (1998), where a caretaker locked an infant in a stifling room for two days without food or water. In such cases, the cold-hearted disregard of a known risk of serious injury or death shows the kind of cruelty and disregard of fundamental human duties that merit prosecution for murder. But where to locate a particular case on that spectrum is often much less clear, as the debate in Commonwealth v. Kling, 731 A.2d 145, 149-152 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1999), shows. The defendant in Kling was convicted of Murder in the Third Degree after racing his car at over 80 miles per hour up and down a two-lane mountain path, weaving in and out of traffic and around blind curves. Shortly before weaving across the center line and causing a head-on collision in which a mother was killed and her child severely injured, Kling ran another person off the road. Still, he did not stop or even slow his headlong descent. What is surprising about Kling is not that the defendant was convicted, but that under those circumstances, there was serious question as to whether his recklessness was sufficient to constitute malice. Indeed, there was at least one judge of the Superior Court who would have reversed Klings conviction, citing Commonwealth v. Comer, 552 Pa. 527 (1998). There, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found insufficient evidence of malice even though a driver consumed alcohol and barbiturates, then drove well above the speed limit down a crowded road, cutting off cars and riding onto the sidewalk before smashing into a bus stop. In trying to make sense of these cases, the Superior Court has concluded that unless the driver has essentially a death wish or steamrolls through a crowd of pedestrians, it would seem unlikely that the recklessness would rise to the level sufficient to find malice. Commonwealth v. McHale, 852 A.2d 1209 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2004). Looking into the cases, however, it becomes clear that the important point is not the degree of recklessness, per se, but the actual warning that the conduct was not just risky, but something more, followed by a decision to continue anyway. This is why Comers conviction was overturned, but Klings was upheld: after Kling ran the first car off the road nearly a mile before he struck his victims, he had nearly thirty seconds to recognize the danger he was posing to others and to decelerate. By choosing not to do so, he consciously elected to proceed while aware of the risk that his actions posed. Comer, by contrast, made a series of reprehensible choices, but killed his victim without a similar warning. Similarly, in Commonwealth v. Scofield, 521 A.2d 40 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1987), the defendant was specifically confronted by a passing taxi driver, who urged him not to drive any further. Instead, he tried to drive away, striking a pedestrian. Accordingly, both drivers had specific warnings of the dangers posed by their actions, but ignored them. The Commonwealth has proffered that it will show that (1) Zillias was conscious of the possibility that high winds could cause a catastrophic collapse in the crane or a loss of lift integrity; (2) previous events gave reason for Zillias to be concerned about the danger inherent in lifting in high wind; (3) Zillias was warned in advance that wind conditions could make the lift unsafe; (4) Zillias was warned on the day in question that the wind could make conditions

unsafe; and (5) Zillias personally decided to proceed anyway, because (6) Zillias was seeking to make a deadline for personal or profit-based reasons. The Commonwealth also contends that Zillias repeatedly caused workers to violate safety and construction codes and that this alone constitutes recklessness per se. That is a bridge too far: criminal liability requires more than civil liability, which in turn often requires more than regulatory liability. Were the Commonwealth correct, merely driving with ones headlight out or failing to signal properly both undeniably violations of the driving code subject to citation would constitute recklessness per se. That cannot be so. This is not, of course, to say that the violations are inadmissible per se, either. They must be judged on a case by case basis, citation by citation, and the Court will consider whether they are provable, relevant, and not unduly prejudicial or confusing in turn. But the time for those decisions is at trial, when the evidence can be considered in context. For now, it is enough to say that the citations neither prove the Commonwealths case themselves nor are categorically irrelevant to it. The Court does not offer any opinion on whether the Commonwealth can actually prove the case it claims it can make, but if it makes such showings, a reasonable jury could conclude that Defendant Zillias acted in conscious disregard of the risks. Critically, there is at least some evidence that the circumstances of the day in question put the defendant on notice not just that her/his course of conduct posed a theoretical risk, but that the risk was being realized. Under the circumstances, the case must be permitted to proceed to jury. The Court offers no opinion on the merits of the case or the wisdom of the aggressive charge that the Commonwealth has brought. The former is a question for the jury; the latter is a question for the people. BY THE COURT: _____________________ Fox, J.

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : MUNICIPAL COURT OF PHILADELPHIA : PHILADELPHIA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA : v. : Docket No.: MC-51-CR-71499-2012 : : Charges: TATUM ZILLIAS, : Murder (3rd Degree) (2 Counts) Defendant :

Stipulations
1. All documents, signatures and exhibits, including pre-markings, included in the case materials are authentic and accurate in all respects; no objections to the authenticity of the documents will be entertained. The parties reserve the right to dispute any legal or factual conclusions based on these items and to make objections other than to authenticity. 2. Jurisdiction, venue and chain of custody of the evidence are proper and may not be challenged. 3. All statements were notarized on the day on which they were signed. 4. All evidence was constitutionally recovered, and all statements were constitutionally obtained. No objection will be entertained to the constitutionality of any evidence, nor will any motions to suppress on constitutional grounds be permitted. 5. Defendant Tatum Zillias has waived her/his rights under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and either party may refer to Zillias decision to testify in opening. 6. Exhibit 3 is a fair and accurate depiction of the construction site at Franklins Trench as it existed on or about August 31, 2012. It is admissible without further foundation. 7. Grace Hopper and Arthur Dent were living human beings on August 31, 2012. 8. The deaths of Grace Hopper and Arthur Dent were caused when the the crane commonly known as Fightin Phil collapsed on top of them on or about August 31, 2012, at or after 3:25 p.m. Their bodies were found beneath the collapsed structure, and their deaths were near instantaneous. 9. Exhibit 7 contains weather reports for August 31, 2012. They were provided by Super-AccuSat weather, a service of SAS Inc., and they were publicly available on SASs webpage, www.weatheradvisory.com, or from the web pages of SAS Inc.s clients, including philly.com, or through a fax and email advisory service. 10. The reports in Exhibit 7 are those that were relied upon by Quinn Baxter in making her/his report. The first two weather reports (12 a.m. and 12:05 p.m.) are true and accurate copies

of those reports reviewed by site personnel on August 31, 2012. The third report (3:15 p.m.) was posted publicly at 3:16 p.m. on the SAS website and on philly.com and was available after that time until 8:57 p.m., when it was replaced by another report. 11. The weather reports found in Exhibit 7 are authentic and accurate, and they may be admitted without further foundation. The readings in those reports were taken by SASs instruments at Philadelphia International Airport. /s/ S. Haimowitz____ Assistant District Attorney Date: December 17, 2012 /s/ Veronica Finkelstein Defendants Attorney

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APPLICABLE LAW
Applicable Statutes 18 Pa.C.S.A. 2502. Murder. (a) Murder of the first degree.--A criminal homicide constitutes murder of the first degree when it is committed by an intentional killing. (b) Murder of the second degree.--A criminal homicide constitutes murder of the second degree when it is committed while defendant was engaged as a principal or an accomplice in the perpetration of a felony. (c) Murder of the third degree.--All other kinds of murder shall be murder of the third degree. Murder of the third degree is a felony of the first degree. Applicable Judicial Decisions Commonwealth v. Ruby, 838 A.2d 786 (2003): Mother did not act recklessly when she lightly struck uncontrollably crying child on chest and the child unexpectedly died from an extremely rare condition caused by the blow. Commonwealth v. DiStefano, 782 A.2d 574, 582 -583 (Pa. Super. Ct 2001): The Pennsylvania Criminal Code defines third degree murder as any killing with malice that is not first or second degree murder. See generally 18 Pa.C.S.A. 2502(c). Decisional precedent further establishes that third degree murder requires no specific intent to kill. Commonwealth v. Baskerville, 452 Pa.Super. 82, 681 A.2d 195, 199200 (1996) (citing Commonwealth v. Seibert, 424 Pa.Super. 242, 622 A.2d 361, 364 (1993)). Rather, the mens rea [mental state] for third degree murder is malice, the definition of which is well settled: Malice consists of a wickedness of disposition, hardness of heart, cruelty, recklessness of consequences, and a mind regardless of social duty, although a particular person may not be intended to be injured....[] [M]alice may be found where the defendant consciously disregarded an unjustified and extremely high risk that his actions might cause serious bodily injury. Commonwealth v. Cottam, 420 Pa.Super. 311, 616 A.2d 988, 1004 (1992) Commonwealth v. Kellam, 719 A.2d 792, 797 (1998): Sufficient evidence of malice by individual left to care for baby found following babys death of malnutrition, dehydration and hyperthermia. The individual left to care for baby did not give baby food or drink for 24 hours; did not change babys diapers; and left baby in hot, enclosed space.

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Commonwealth v. Comer, 552 Pa. 527 (1998): Drivers behavior did not manifest extreme indifference to the value of human life where driver had five drinks and a barbiturate (downer) and then drove vehicle at excessive rate of speed, cutting off other cars and running up a curb before careening across multiple lanes of traffic, and running through a utility pole, before driving through a SEPTA bus stand, killing a pedestrian who was waiting for a bus. Commonwealth v. O'Hanlon, 539 Pa. 478, 653 A.2d 616, 618 (1995): Driver did not manifest extreme indifference to human life where he was intoxicated and ran a red light, striking and seriously injuring pedestrian. Commonwealth v. Scofield, 360 Pa.Super. 552, 521 A.2d 40 (1987): Driver manifested extreme indifference to human life where he had consumed alcohol and/or barbiturates, scraped along another vehicle, ran onto a sidewalk and struck a building, then was warned not to drive by passing cab driver, did so anyway, and struck a pedestrian, causing serious injury.

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JURY INSTRUCTIONS
At the conclusion of a jury trial, the judge will instruct the jury how to apply the law to the evidence. Hypothetically, if the judge in your mock trial case were to provide instructions to the jury, they would look something like the following: [Please note: A copy of these instructions may not be used as an exhibit during the mock trial competition; however, students may use these concepts in fashioning their case and making arguments to the jury.]

1. Role of Jury. Members of the jury, you have seen and heard all the evidence and the arguments of the lawyers. Now I will instruct you on the law. You have two duties as a jury. Your first duty is to decide the facts from the evidence that you have heard and seen in court during this trial. That is your job and yours alone. I play no part in finding the facts. You should not take anything I may have said or done during the trial as indicating what I think of the evidence or what I think about what your verdict should be. Your second duty is to apply the law that I give you to the facts. My role now is to explain to you the legal principles that must guide you in your decisions. You must apply my instructions carefully. Each of the instructions is important, and you must apply all of them. You must not substitute or follow your own notion or opinion about what the law is or ought to be. You must apply the law that I give to you, whether you agree with it or not. Whatever your verdict, it will have to be unanimous. All of you will have to agree on it or there will be no verdict. In the jury room you will discuss the case among yourselves, but ultimately each of you will have to make up his or her own mind. This is a responsibility that each of you has and that you cannot avoid. Perform these duties fairly and impartially. Do not allow sympathy, prejudice, fear, or public opinion to influence you. You should also not be influenced by any person's race, color, religion, national ancestry, or gender 2. Jury sole judge of facts; sympathy or prejudice not to influence verdict. You are the sole judges of the facts in this case. It is your duty to determine the facts from the evidence produced here in court. Your verdict should not be based on speculation, guess or conjecture. Neither sympathy nor prejudice should influence your verdict. You are to apply the law as stated in these instructions to the facts as you find them, and in this way decide the case. Although the lawyers may have called your attention to certain facts or factual conclusions that they thought were important, what the lawyers said is not evidence and is not binding on you. It is your own recollection and interpretation of the evidence that controls your decision in this case. Also, do not assume from anything I may have done or said during the trial that I have any opinion about any of the issues in this case or about what your verdict should be.

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3. Credibility of witnesses. As I stated in my preliminary instructions at the beginning of the trial, in deciding what the facts are you must decide what testimony you believe and what testimony you do not believe. You are the sole judges of the credibility of the witnesses. Credibility refers to whether a witness is worthy of belief: Was the witness truthful? Was the witness testimony accurate? You may believe everything a witness says, or only part of it, or none of it. You may decide whether to believe a witness based on his or her behavior and manner of testifying, the explanations the witness gave, and all the other evidence in the case, just as you would in any important matter where you are trying to decide if a person is truthful, straightforward, and accurate in his or her recollection. In deciding the question of credibility, remember to use your common sense, your good judgment, and your experience. In deciding what to believe, you may consider a number of factors: (1) The opportunity and ability of the witness to see or hear or know the things about which the witness testified; (2) The quality of the witness knowledge, understanding, and memory; (3) The witness appearance, behavior, and manner while testifying; (4) Whether the witness has an interest in the outcome of the case or any motive, bias, or prejudice; (5) Any relation the witness may have with a party in the case and any effect the verdict may have on the witness; (6) Whether the witness said or wrote anything before trial that was different from the witness testimony in court; (7) Whether the witness testimony was consistent or inconsistent with other evidence that you believe; and (8) Any other factors that bear on whether the witness should be believed. Inconsistencies or discrepancies in a witness testimony or between the testimony of different witnesses may or may not cause you to disbelieve a witness testimony. Two or more persons witnessing an event may simply see or hear it differently. Mistaken recollection, like failure to recall, is a common human experience. In weighing the effect of an inconsistency, you should also consider whether it was about a matter of importance or an insignificant detail. You should also consider whether the inconsistency was innocent or intentional. You are not required to accept testimony even if the testimony was not contradicted and the witness was not impeached. You may decide that the witness is not worthy of belief because of the witness bearing and demeanor, or because of the inherent improbability of the testimony, or for other reasons that are sufficient to you. After you make your own judgment about the believability of a witness, you can then attach to that witness testimony the importance or weight that you think it deserves. The weight of the evidence to prove a fact does not necessarily depend on the number of witnesses who testified or the quantity of evidence that was presented. What is more important than numbers or quantity is how believable the witnesses were, and how much weight you think their testimony deserves.

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4. Presumption of innocence; reasonable doubt; burden of proof. The defendant, Tatum Zillias pleaded not guilty to the offense charged. The Defendant is presumed to be innocent. S/he started the trial with a clean slate, with no evidence against her/him. The presumption of innocence stays with Tatum Zillias unless and until the government has presented evidence that overcomes that presumption by convincing you that Tatum Zillias is guilty of the offense charged beyond a reasonable doubt. The presumption of innocence requires that you find Tatum Zillias not guilty, unless you are satisfied that the government has proved guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The presumption of innocence means that Tatum Zillias has no burden or obligation to present any evidence at all or to prove that s/he is not guilty. The burden or obligation of proof is on the government to prove that Tatum Zillias is guilty and this burden stays with the government throughout the trial. In order for you to find Tatum Zillias guilty of the offense charged, the government must convince you that Tatum Zillias is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. That means that the government must prove each and every element of the offense charged beyond a reasonable doubt. A defendant may not be convicted based on suspicion or conjecture, but only on evidence proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt does not mean proof beyond all possible doubt or to a mathematical certainty. Possible doubts or doubts based on conjecture, speculation, or hunch are not reasonable doubts. A reasonable doubt is a fair doubt based on reason, logic, common sense, or experience. It is a doubt that an ordinary reasonable person has after carefully weighing all of the evidence, and is a doubt of the sort that would cause him or her to hesitate to act in matters of importance in his or her own life. It may arise from the evidence, or from the lack of evidence, or from the nature of the evidence. If, having now heard all the evidence, you are convinced that the government proved each and every element of the offense charged beyond a reasonable doubt, you should return a verdict of guilty for that offense. However, if you have a reasonable doubt about one or more of the elements of the offense charged, then you must return a verdict of not guilty of that offense. 5. Nature of the Information As you know the Defendant, Tatum Zillias, is charged in the information with violation of state law, specifically Murder in the Third Degree. The information is just the formal way of specifying the exact crime the defendant is accused of committing. As the information is simply a description of the charge(s) against the defendant. It is an accusation only. An information is not evidence of anything, and you should not give any weight to the fact that Tatum Zillias has been indicted in making your decision. 6. Murder Third Degree. (Based upon 18 Pa.C.S.A. 2502(c)) Third-degree murder is any killing with malice that is not first- or second-degree murder. The defendant, Tatum Zillias, has been charged with third-degree murder. To find the defendant guilty of this offense with respect to Grace Hopper, you must find that the following three elements have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt: First, that Grace Hopper is dead;

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Second, that the defendant killed her; and Third, that the defendant did so with malice. The elements for Count Two, the alleged Third Degree Murder of Arthur Dent, are identical. The word "malice" as I am using it has a special legal meaning. It does not mean simply hatred, spite, or ill-will. Malice is a shorthand way of referring to particular mental states that the law regards as being bad enough to make a killing murder. For murder of the third degree, a killing is with malice if the perpetrator's actions show his or her wanton and willful disregard of an unjustified and extremely high risk that his or her conduct would result in death or serious bodily injury to another. In this form of malice, the Commonwealth need not prove that the perpetrator specifically intended to kill another. The Commonwealth must prove, however, that the perpetrator took action while consciously, that is, knowingly, disregarding the most serious risk he or she was creating, and that, by his or her disregard of that risk, the perpetrator demonstrated his or her extreme indifference to the value of human life. When deciding whether the defendant acted with malice, you should consider all the evidence regarding her/his words, conduct, and the attending circumstances. 7. Jury must not consider penalty. You must not concern yourself with the consequences of your verdict. 8. Role of Jury Deliberations; Unanimous Verdict, Duty to consult. That concludes my instructions explaining the law regarding the testimony and other evidence, and the offenses charged. Now let me explain some things about your deliberations in the jury room, and your possible verdicts. First, the first thing that you should do in the jury room is choose someone to be your foreperson. This person will speak for the jury here in court. He or she will also preside over your discussions. However, the views and vote of the foreperson are entitled to no greater weight than those of any other juror. Second, I want to remind you that your verdict, whether it is guilty or not guilty, must be unanimous. To find Tatum Zillias guilty of an offense, every one of you must agree that the government has overcome the presumption of innocence with evidence that proves each element of that offense beyond a reasonable doubt. To find Tatum Zillias not guilty, every one of you must agree that the government has failed to convince you beyond a reasonable doubt. Third, if you decide that the government has proved Tatum Zillias guilty, then it will be my responsibility to decide what the appropriate punishment should be. You should never consider the possible punishment in reaching your verdict. Fourth, as I have said before, your verdict must be based only on the evidence received in this case and the law I have given to you. You should not take anything I may have said or done during trial as indicating what I think of the evidence or what I think your verdict should be. What the verdict should be is the exclusive responsibility of the jury.

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Fifth, now that all the evidence is in, the arguments are completed, and once I have finished these instructions, you are free to talk about the case in the jury room. In fact, it is your duty to talk with each other about the evidence, and to make every reasonable effort you can to reach unanimous agreement. Talk with each other, listen carefully and respectfully to each other's views, and keep an open mind as you listen to what your fellow jurors have to say. Do not hesitate to change your mind if you are convinced that other jurors are right and that your original position was wrong. But do not ever change your mind just because other jurors see things differently, or just to get the case over with. In the end, your vote must be exactly that-your own vote. It is important for you to reach unanimous agreement, but only if you can do so honestly and in good conscience. Listen carefully to what the other jurors have to say, and then decide for yourself if the government has proved the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. No one will be allowed to hear your discussions in the jury room, and no record will be made of what you say. You should all feel free to speak your minds. Sixth, once you start deliberating, do not talk about the case to the court officials, or to me, or to anyone else except each other. If you have any questions or messages, your foreperson should write them down on a piece of paper, sign them, and then give them to the court official who will give them to me. I will first talk to the lawyers about what you have asked, and I will respond as soon as I can. In the meantime, if possible, continue with your deliberations on some other subject. One more thing about messages. Do not ever write down or tell anyone how you or anyone else voted. That should stay secret until you have finished your deliberations. If you have occasion to communicate with the court while you are deliberating, do not disclose the number of jurors who have voted to convict or acquit on any offense.

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COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : MUNICIPAL COURT OF PHILADELPHIA : PHILADELPHIA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA : v. : Docket No.: MC-51-CR-71499-2012 : : Charges: TATUM ZILLIAS, : Murder (3rd Degree) (2 Counts) Defendant :

VERDICT FORM
[At many trials, the judge provides a form like this to the jury at the end of the trial. The jury is instructed to reach a verdict consistent with the answers it finds to the form. A copy of this form may not be used as an exhibit during the mock trial competition.]

To the jury: To further clarify instructions given to you by the trial judge, you are being provided with the following verdict form. At the conclusion of your deliberations, one copy of this form should be signed by your foreperson and handed to the court clerk. This will constitute your verdict. Remember that you must find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt as to each charge, independently. Question 1: Do you find that the Commonwealth has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant Tatum Zillias consciously disregarded an unjustified and extremely high risk that his actions might cause serious bodily injury and, in so doing, caused the death of Grace Hopper? Yes ________ No _________ Question 2: Do you find that the Commonwealth has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant Tatum Zillias consciously disregarded an unjustified and extremely high risk that his actions might cause serious bodily injury and, in so doing, caused the death of Arthur Dent? Yes ________ No _________

You have finished your deliberations. Please sign at the bottom of this form. Please return to the courtroom.

Jury Foreperson

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List of Witnesses
The prosecution and the defendant must call each of their respective witnesses. Tatum Zillias is permitted to sit at counsel table as the Defendant. For the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania: Emerson Turnkin: Quinn Baxter: London Packard: Former Site Supervisor Franklins Trench Former OCIS Investigator Expert Witness Former Resident of Franklins Trench

For the Defendant, Tatum Zillias: Tatum Zillias: Micah Estratton: Reese Dentner: Defendant and Project Z Owner Form Crane Supervisor Expert Witness Freelance Newspaper Writer

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Statement of Emerson Turnkin 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

My name is Emerson Turnkin, or Em for short. I was the Site Supervisor at Franklins Trench on August 31st, 2012. Anyone who calls that disaster an accident is a fool or has been fooled. Those people were knowingly sacrificed to Tatum Zillias raging ego and insatiable pocketbook. Nobody should be surprised that that crane fell in those winds. We sure werent. No matter how much money Tatum throws at this, the blood that forever stains that site will never be rubbed away. No matter how hard s/he tries or what lies s/he tells, that spot will never come out. So how did it happen? How did we wind up lifting so much into the teeth of a gale? I wish I could have stopped it. I wish I had called out sick. I wish I had quit and never bothered to show up. I wish I had had the power to do something, but I was helpless. I was nothing more than window dressing at a worksite that had one and only one supervisor: Tatum Zillias. It wasnt supposed to be like this for me. I was supposed to be something so much more. I wanted to be a property developer. My family wasnt poor, but we struggled, especially after my father died on the job site, and I put myself through college working in retail. Now Im 53, single, no kids, unemployed. I have a degree from Penn State in construction management and thirty years on job sites, but no one will ever give me those jobs again. Pretty pathetic, really. It all started out well, too. I built a reputation the way I built a house brick by brick, each one carefully laid on the next. I didnt always get things done the fastest, but I had a pristine record for union relations and for eventual success. It was basically the opposite of the way Zillias did things. Her/his reputation was clear speed meant profit, and extra speed was worth paying a few citations or greasing a few palms along the way. People used to joke that s/he was going for the Guinness record for most citations without actually getting shut down. When we worked together on the Trench, I often heard Tatum saying Fast means good, fast means profit. That was the culture. Im talking about dangerous stuff, too like unsecured scaffolding, unlocked equipment and heavy machinery that shouldve been serviced months, if not years before. Cutting corners was less expensive than playing by the rules. I was stunned when Zillias approached me in 2011 about working on the Trench project. I guess s/he knew that I had good connections, and I knew that s/he could use some good press after the fallout from that HUD investigation of Zillias Construction. I had never supervised a large-scale site before, just single-family homes, but Zillias said s/he liked that better, because we had the same approach. I confronted Zilias about the fast means good policy, which was a concern, but s/he told me that was all in the past and promised me complete job site control. That was a lie, but even at the end, my name was still at the bottom of all the paperwork. I became the Site Supervisor, which in theory meant that I was responsible for all aspects of the project, from budgets to safety. But, I found out that reality is often different than theory. I made up my mind that I was going to do everything right on this project. I was going to adhere to every code and refuse to cut corners. When it came time for our initial licensing in early August 2011, it was Inspector Baxter who came to the site. I could tell s/he was impressed with the work Id done. In fact, her/his only comment was that the road was graded a bit too steeply for code, but really that is a very, very minor violation and one I promised to correct quickly. Everything was moving in the right direction. It was the safest site in the city: I would spend at least two hours a day on safety protocol and sweeps. We barely had a stubbed toe on our site. When Fightin Phil was erected in September 2011, I could see my dream becoming a reality. Id never seen a crane that big, much less worked with one! Phil was a thing of beauty! Micah, the crane operator, was a bit of a strange one. S/he treated that crane like a person, talking to it, giving a high five every morning, stuff like that. But I guess if there are horse whisperers, then a

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46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92

crane whisperer is also possible. All I know is that Micah was the best crane operator I have ever met. Regardless of weather, time or temperature, s/he knew how to get the most out of Fightin Phil. The one big problem that everyone had overlooked was a group of squatters living in Franklins Trench who refused to relocate. They felt that they had a right to be on the land and that we were invading their property. I decided to humor them and meet with their self-proclaimed leader, London Packard, one day in October. S/he even had this freelance investigative reporter with her/him, Reese Dentner, but I didnt pay Reese much mind. Londons demands were absolutely ridiculous! S/he wanted us to stop construction and move the entire project two blocks east. Unfortunately, I couldnt control my temper. Instead of defusing the situation, I blew up at London and accidently started a bit of a feud. This was the last thing I wanted. I tried to brush it off, telling myself that the squatters were harmless. The only problem is that they started vandalizing the site, which made it very, very hard to stay on task, because we had to keep red flagging stopping work - to do safety checks. Mostly it was little stuff, like graffiti, or moving some markers or digging holes on the heavy machinery track. But it slowed us down, and every delay was a strike against me and made my job harder. On January 10, 2012, everything changed. Tatum came by the site and after a few minutes of pleasantries about the New Year and how pretty the site looked, Tatum began a tirade that went on uninterrupted for at least an hour. The pinnacle of the rant was a when Tatum stared right at me and said, I dont care if people get hurt. We can pay for that! We can pay for anything but time! This project is going to get done! I lost my cool once again and said, It wasnt my fault, it was those darn mole people! I dont think Tatum even knew what I was talking about. S/He just kind of looked at me like I was crazy and stormed out of my office. S/he watched us like a hawk after that. My safety checks were cut and then cut again at Zillias direction. Even worse, the workers were offered an extra hour in each day. Those who didnt want it didnt last long, although mostly people liked the overtime. Soon, Tatum started a second shift, without even asking me! So now I was running a sixteen hour site, alone! Accidents increased tenfold, but Tatum didnt care and really, at least at first, neither did the unions. Construction sites are inherently dangerous, and we hard hats know the risks. Plus, jobs were hard to come by, and Tatum always paid. S/he even buttered up the workers with hundred dollar bills. They pretended to like it, but the word around the site was that s/he was just a rich person rubbing it in the face of the working guy. The union didnt care if people got some extra cash, and when I complained the OCIS inspector, Grace Hopper, about the unsafe conditions, she said that all she could do was write up citations, since there were no major violations. I am positive that Tatum must have been paying Grace off, or some sort of other favor was going on. There was no way a responsible government official wouldve turned a blind eye to all of this stuff. In April, when the final weight totals on the state-of-the-art roofing panels came in, it was 200 tons over the max load limit for the crane. Micah was convinced that Fightin Phil could handle it. Id already lost control of the situation, so I just told her/him to sort it out with Tatum. I really didnt care at all at that point. A week or so later, Micah came back to me and said that s/he had spoken to Tatum and that Tatum was aware of the risk, but had told Micah to proceed as planned. I knew this was a mistake. These were no ordinary roofing panels. Not only were they heavier than expected, the shape of the design was unique and they had these wind turbines built into them, so the weight wasnt evenly distributed. For all the experience Micah had with Fightin Phil, it was stupid to take such a risk. I knew Tatum was aggressive, but this was beyond negligent, it was reckless.

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93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139

Over the next few months the site was beyond tense. Tatum was there daily, and every day I would get yelled at for the project being behind schedule. I had no choice but to take it; I couldnt leave my workers behind, and my reputation was tied to the site, either way. I wasnt going to be Tatums scapegoat! By April, though, everyone knew who was running the show. Even my foremen would go straight to Tatum half the time. One day in May, I saw London and another mole person mucking about around the mooring area of Fightin Phil. I managed to scare them off, but it did raise a serious concern. I was worried that they were plotting something, but I couldnt tell what it was. I checked out the crane and everything seemed ok. I didnt bother mentioning it to Micah, but did relay the information to Tatum, who seemed as disinterested as ever. S/he muttered something like I dont think we have to concern ourselves with a bit of graffiti, do you? I guess s/he had a point. London and her/his gangs efforts were annoying, but harmless. In June 2012, things got really intense. Tatum decided that s/he needed to be onsite 24hrs a day. First, a third shift was added, and overtime became mandatory. There was a bonus deadline looming in October, and Tatum wanted to make the sure the project was done for all of the politicians. I even think Tatum had some political aspirations of her/his own at this point. S/he was totally out of control. When Inspector Baxter showed up to see how the site was going, we almost had a disaster. Baxter doesnt kid around, and s/he had the authority to shut us down! Tatum ordered me to deal with her/him, because of my reputation I guess. S/he raised a bunch of good points, but in the end, I knew that s/he had a choice to either cite us or fight us in court. I did what I knew Tatum would have wanted: I told Baxter s/he could close the site, if s/he had the goods. Instead, we were given a bunch of citations, and Tatum paid them all, as always. The breakneck pace was taking its toll on the workers. The build was getting done, but the haphazard approach was dangerous, and Tatum knew it. Even though we had put up a fence, squatters were still milling around, and tools were being left everywhere. I even thought I heard Fightin Phil creaking a bit. The other crane operator, Rose Rivett, was so tired that she started taking speed and almost swung Phil into an apartment building! During our morning meeting one day in early August, I bit the bullet and confronted Tatum about the huge risk we were taking. Predictably, s/he said, Remember, my dear Em, if we dont finish fast, we die. Nothing you say can change that now. Go make yourself look busy. After that, honestly, my heart just wasnt in the work. I stopped caring, and I even missed a day or two of work. Mostly, I just sat in my office at the end of the site, mindlessly signing paperwork and sorting through the junk mail while I waited for this nightmare to end. I still had one fear, though: the Big Lifts at the end of August. Shortly before they were scheduled, Hurricane Issac hit the Gulf Coast. I was terrified, not because of the danger it posed for the workers, but for the fact that if the torrential rains came before the roofing panel was in place, months of effort would be lost. Tatum was determined to get the overweight roofing panels in place before this happened. It was all hands on deck, and the lift was going to proceed at all costs. I tried to have a rational discussion with Tatum the night before, when we saw how bad the weather was going to be. But Tatum was having none of it. S/he just raced off to trumpet her/his Springsteen tickets for everyone plan. Micah tried to make me feel better, but I knew in my bones that disaster was looming. On the morning of August 31st, Reeses article on the Trench hit front page of the paper, and I was painted as some sort of monster. I raced to the site anyway. I knew all safety precautions were going to be thrown out, so I took it upon myself to do a check. From the managers office, I thought I saw a squatter poking around Fightin Phil. However, when I got down there, no one

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140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176

was there. I took a look at the mooring and the machinery and everything looked to be in order, but I was no expert. I reported this to Tatum when s/he arrived, but once again, I was ignored. I also brought Tatum an even worse weather report from the night before that showed winds coming earlier. S/he just asked me, So why arent we lifting now? as though we should start before dawn, without even warming up the crane. After a quick sweep, the minimum Code requires, we got started, and disaster almost came right away. Micah lost control in the gusts when lifting the first panel and almost plowed it into an apartment building! I had never seen her/him make a mistake like that! I started to talk to Tatum, but s/he shot me a glance that shut me up and shut me down. When it came time for second lift, the rain was quieting down a bit, but the wind was getting stronger and stronger. Tatum, Grace and I were in the managers office, and Grace was concerned. I told them both that I was very worried and about the conditions and recommended postponing the second lift until the following day. That was ridiculous, of course, because we all knew the winds would ground us for at least three days. But I knew voicing that would guarantee I would get nowhere. So instead I told Tatum what s/he already knew - that the load was pushed beyond the limits of the crane, that the roofing panels shape made it hard to predict how it would react in the high winds, and that the ground upon which Fightin Phil stood was getting soft. But rather than listen to me, Tatum convinced Grace to ask Micah for her thoughts. Now, Micah was great at what s/he did, but s/he was in love with Fightin Phil and was convinced that the crane could handle any task. Grace said that she couldnt stop the lift without Quinn Baxters approval, and that she knew Quinn valued my opinion, but I knew that Id be fired if I lifted a finger on the spot if I tried to stop the lift. So I just kind of nodded and said nothing. Grace stormed out to watch the lift from below. A half hour later, the lift was stopped when another damn squatter appeared. The load was pitching and yawing over the site. Tatum bolted from the booth to confront Grace, and I saw them fighting over the green flag. It looked to me like Tatum was winning, but with all the rain and wind, at that distance, I couldnt really see what was happening. However, I am pretty sure that I saw Tatum grab the flag from Grace and start waving it in Micahs direction. The rest is horrible history. At the top of the lift, the wind gusted stronger than it had all day, and I saw the roofing panel catch the gale. It was like watching a sail billow and capsize a boat. In seconds, the best crane in the mid-Atlantic was a pile of twisted steel. For all of her/his bravado, for all of her/his cavalier attitude, this risk taken and utter disregard for safety had finally caught up with Tatum. Tatum might try to blame this all on me, or some phantom effort by London and the squatters or even God. Thats a joke. Theres no way that a squatter with a fire axe could bring down an elegantly engineered construction crane. Its just implausible. Tatum thought her/his legacy was more important than human life. I was convicted in the court of public opinion for my treatment of the squatters, but Tatum needs to be convicted in a court of law.

Emerson Turnkin
Signature

December 6, 2012
DATE

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Statement of Quinn Baxter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

My name is Quinn Baxter, and I was the OCIS inspector responsible for the investigation of the Fightin Phil crane collapse, the worst construction accident in this city in decades, and certainly the most high profile. As the senior investigator in the Philadelphia Regional Office, and because of my personal knowledge of Tatum Zillias lax view of regulations, I assigned this investigation to myself. During the period 1998-2012, I served as an inspector with the Philadelphia Regional Office of the Directorate of Construction at the United States Office of Construction Inspection and Safety (OCIS). Prior to joining OCIS, I worked for seven years at the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Bureau of Occupational and Industrial Safety (BOIS). I graduated from Carnegie Mellon with a degree in civil engineering in 1985, and I have a Masters Degree from the University of Pittsburgh in Industrial Engineering. I received that degree in 1996. For approximately eighteen months in 1989-1991 and from 1994-95, I stayed at home, helping to raise my children. Other than that and a brief period I was unemployed after college, I have been working on the safety side of the construction industry my whole adult life. I devote a majority of my time to site inspections, where I attempt to determine if a construction project violates any regulations or otherwise endangers worker safety. I also inspect sites following serious injuries to help determine cause. I have done that nearly a dozen times. I have been called to testify in court approximately ten times, mostly with BOIS. Most times I was accepted as an expert, although twice I was not. Although I havent been asked to testify in court for over five years, I have testified in a half dozen or so administrative hearings in the past few years. Last year, I received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Safety Council. I have been a member of the American Society of Safety Engineers for eighteen years, and I served as its Vice President in 2002. For the past eight years, I have also consulted on safety issues for the Association of Crane and Rigging Professionals. I first met Tatum Zillias when I was working as an inspector with BOIS and Zillias was just starting out. This is before s/he founded Project Z. I always find code problems when I do a site visit, but I had never seen anything like this one! Equipment was left unlocked, with keys in it, and one of the scaffolds was held together with duct tape! I threatened to shut the whole site down, but Zillias called my bluff and my supervisor! I wound up writing over a dozen citations, but I later found out that s/he had only been forced to pay half of them. S/he probably saved more money than s/he paid. No wonder s/he was smirking. After that, I tried to keep an eye on Zillias wherever I could, but her/his rags-to-riches story just appealed to people, and a lot of the violations I found are pretty common. I know that code book inside and out, and I was definitely the best in my office at finding them. For some reason, though, my supervisors didnt really support me. And when Zillias filed a formal complaint with the governors office about my harassment, I wound up getting assigned to other projects. I didnt try to get reassigned to a Zillias site, and I didnt work another one in my last five years with the Commonwealth. When I first joined OCIS, my focus was on massive projects, and Zillias was doing residential work. OCIS supports me more. In fact, after my work on Fightin Phil, I got a detail as the Acting Director of the Office of Engineering Services in Washington, D.C. Its the same pay, but Im near the top of the agency. Corner office here I come! In 2011-12, Id been following the Franklins Trench job from afar, and Id even had the opportunity to visit the site a few times, in my official capacity. The first time was ceremonial, for the ribbon cutting. I cant say that I cared for seeing Zillias with all those dignitaries, but s/he

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didnt say a cross word to me. In fact, s/he kind of gave me this hug and told the Mayor that I was the best person working in construction safety. I dont know what to make of that. Later on, I went back to the site officially, to inspect the opening. I was impressed; the road was graded 2% too steeply, and they had a few loose tools in dangerous places, but it was one of the better sites Ive seen, especially since I showed up hours early to catch them off-guard. Finally, I did a spot inspection in June, 2012. I had been warned by Grace Hopper, the site inspector assigned to the site, that it had gotten worse, and boy was she right! The job site was chaos, and Emerson Turnkin had clearly lost control. Id worked with Turnkin before, and I was impressed. Her/his safety record was tremendous, and s/he really cared about the code. But that wasnt the person I saw that day: Turnkin was wild, shouting at the workers, and s/he was engaged in some kind of running debate with a street person. I also found plenty of issues to write up: workers were eating lunch while manning the machinery, electrical lines were not properly secured, scaffolds were resting on uneven ground, and tools were literally everywhere. I wrote it all out, and I laid into Turnkin. S/he listened carefully and then told me to sue her/him. I was stunned, until I saw Tatum Zillias watching; it must have been her/his doing. One bad apple spoils the bunch. I did my best, but I couldnt find any red flags, that is, problems that manifest an imminent risk of death or serious bodily injury. And if Grace had seen any on her weekly inspections, she had not mentioned them. So I filed my citations, and Tatum Zillias paid every one of them the next day. S/he even sent me a note, thanking me for my diligence. The nerve! After that, I turned my attention to other matters. I trusted that if something went seriously wrong, Grace would notify me. I later learned of an incident in July where a crane operator almost caused serious damage because she was taking amphetamines. Thats just the kind of thing that lets us know that workers are being pushed beyond the limits of safety. Zillias must have hidden it from Grace, but a developer is required to report incidents like that to OCIS. I checked our files, and nothing was submitted. As a result, I didnt know about the incident or the dangers it suggested. August 31 is not a day I will ever forget. Grace was on-scene, because it was such a big event, and she called me throughout the day. She was terrified of the winds and the rain, and she thought some disaster was coming, but she wasnt sure shed seen enough to shut the site down. That is a very big call, and its not one that any field inspector can make. They can use the red flag to stop work temporarily, for a few minutes or even an hour, to conduct a sweep of the site or to remediate some specific problem, like a worker in danger or to look for possible sabotage. But to shut down a worksite for longer than that, even for a red flag violation, is a serious intrusion into the developers autonomy, and the most drastic use of OCISs power, as well as a political nightmare. OCIS can even be sued for it! So that decision requires approval from a supervisor like me. But with construction sites throughout the region, we cant be at every one. So the field inspectors go, and they call if they see something that drastically problematic. I had trained Grace myself, and I trusted her completely. Besides, the first panel lifted without incident. Then, at 3:30, all hell broke loose. I was in a meeting when I got paged over the loudspeaker, which never happens. I knew immediately that something must have gone horribly wrong. I raced out into a hallway filled with people grabbing hard hats and bullhorns. I later found out that Grace had tried to reach me around 3:20, but no one put the call through to the conference room. When I checked my cell phone, there was a text from 3:23 that simply said URGENT: CALL ME. She must have wanted the site shut down. I took over the investigation immediately. I arrived with two junior people from my office at about 3:50 p.m. We could see the dust cloud from blocks away. The wind was driving it across

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town at shocking speed, even as the rain got worse. As we got closer, we could hear the ambulance and police sirens. I checked with the senior police officer, and she told me that the area was not a crime scene. I took charge and had my team cordon it off as an active worker safety investigation, and the police began moving the workers off the site. By 4:15, we realized that no one had seen Grace since the collapse. I had trained her to stick close on a lift like this one, to better see and hear trouble coming, and I knew immediately that we would find her under the crane. Nonetheless, my duty was clear, and once the bodies were removed, I started my work. It took over an hour for the collapse to completely finish and the dust to settle so that we could safely move around. At 5:20, I began my formal site review. Fightin Phil was a tangled web of steel and cable. It was obvious that the crane had collapsed to the operators left side, the legs folding over on themselves. That kind of force is very unusual, and I was shocked to see it. I examined the wreckage as best I could, in the dusk and the rain, and I interviewed the witnesses, except Micah Estratton, who was at the emergency room. By 6:45, the rains and winds made the site too dangerous, and my team went home. We returned that Tuesday. A copy of my final report is attached, and I adopt it completely. I based it on my observations, interviews, and on all the documents I collected from the site, including the engineering specs, plans, construction map, and the weather reports. The more I think about it, the angrier I get on a strictly professional level, of course. Anyone who read a weather report could see that winds were going to be gusting. Grace was a great inspector, but I cant see why she didnt call me earlier. Fightin Phils manufacturer provided specs that rated its capacity to haul flat surfaces in wind. But the roof wasnt flat; it was curved, and a properly anchored curved surface is basically a sail. Plus, Phil was already above engineering tolerance with just the dead lift itself. And they knew, it, too! When I found out that the site supervisor had used improper pilings to secure the crane, there was no wondering left to do. Nor can we rule out the possible role of metal fatigue. Fightin Phil was nearly twenty years old, and the crane was continuously operated throughout the project. Although you dont test metal fatigue by doing daily site inspections, you can see warning signs. Project Z has no daily morning inspection checklists for the six weeks preceding the collapse, and the nightly inspections dont positively demonstrate that the workers were diligent in their efforts to find issues with the crane. Moreover, continuous operation of the kind that Project Z demanded would have put additional stress on the crane and the workers. OCIS denied my request for funds to have a forensic metallurgist examine the wreckage, but it is possible, maybe even likely, that the buckling was due in part to this fatigue. Zillias was an experienced developer; s/he had to have known (and ignored) these risks. Theres no decision that Zillias made that, in isolation, would have been a red flag, but in my mind, yellow and orange make red. Zillias piled up yellow and orange flags left and right. Collectively, combined with a peak wind gust, they buckled Fightin Phil and killed two people, including my protg and good friend, who tried to stop them. I have read Micah Estrattons statement, and I just cant agree with the theory that sabotage caused the crash. Theres no reason to think that an unsophisticated member of the public could have caused meaningful damage to Fightin Phil, and the forces acting on the crane wouldve been more than enough to cause it to buckle without any help. We did find damage to the hydraulics, but that could easily have occurred in the crash itself, which destroyed virtually every moving part on the crane. Plus, theres no reason to think that a simple hydraulic failure wouldve led to the kind of catastrophic failure that we see here. And even if you thought that a person could do that, if they had done a full sweep when they saw the squatter, as they should

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have, they would have discovered that supposed damage. Estrattons theory would let Tatum Zillias walk away. I cant accept that outcome: these needless deaths were caused by Zillias and by a culture that doesnt take code violations seriously enough. Thats not OCIS policy, but it is my view. The DA in this case is an American hero for indicting Tatum Zillias.

Quinn Baxter
Signature

December 7, 2012
DATE

27

Statement of London Packard 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

There are places I remember all my life, though some have changed. Some forever, not for better, some have gone and some remain the same. Thats Franklins Trench. It was once my home, though through all of the disfigured metal, you cannot now recognize the utopia in which I and the 50 or so other Trenchers once lived. We are scattered now, like so many autumn leaves, and the lives that were taken from us, from all of us, can never be returned. I was born into a bleak and uncaring, black and white world, and it was only in my young adulthood that color flowed into it. You cannot understand it now, but in the late 1960s, it was possible to imagine that society was awakening, that there could be a time with no possessions, nothing to kill or die for, and no religion, too. And with the people and the land itself, I, too awakened. I starved with my sisters and brothers in the jails of the South, and I rode the buses with them through the fields of hatred, and I shared with them their food and drink and drugs. We were one, man. But then the color faded. Friends snuffed out, their lives lost to bad acid or their souls lost to The Man. I stayed pure, though, moving from place to place, working with my hands while I wrote my poetry and played my songs of love and loss, living wherever the ground was soft and the company sweet. There are many ways to measure wealth, and the size of your bank account is merely the cruelest. Riches are measured in the time you have to do what you love. I dont need no diamond ring to keep me satisfied. I dont care too much for money One bright, sunshine-filled day in 1975, I was strolling through the City of Brotherly Love when I stumbled across Franklins Trench. It was heaven. It had good cover, warmth from steam vents for the cold nights and even a bit of soil for growing basics in summertime. In an abandoned side tunnel, I found clean water dripping. Water is life, my brothers and sisters, and I knew I had found a blessed place, like the Nile or the Euphrates, where I could welcome all to a new kind of civilization. I laid down my poncho and thanked the spirits for their gift. I never advertised Franklins Trench, but if you were meant to be there, the City herself would whisper in your ear. It didnt matter who you were, or whether you could pay. We collected things together, and if you were hurting, well, we all get by with a little help from our friends. In the 27 solar years that we had our home, over 1500 souls sojourned with us. Even Tatum Zillias mother lived with us for a month or two. She was a kind woman, and she freely gave of what little she had. We never imagined that that bright eyed kid with her would grow to be a monster. From time to time a reporter would catch wind of what was going on in the Trench and want to do some cutesy human interest piece, but I would always refuse an interview. Anonymity was the best defense of our Shangri-La. But that all changed in the summer of 2011, when Zillias decided to turn our haven for the downtrodden and outcast into a shard of bitter steel. I watched Zillias watch us the first day s/he was there. S/He looked through us, like we were broken fixtures on the wall. When I found out that the city sold the land to Zillias for a dollar, I was outraged. This was our home, and it was sold right out from under us! One of the saddest days of my life was when they moved in that crane. It was like a vulture, a harbinger of doom staring down into the trench. I called a community meeting and told everyone what was happening. The Trenchers took the news hard. Most felt that they would have to move on and find another place to call home. Pretty much everyone thought so, except me and Arty Dent. Arty was one of the strangest residents of the Trench. He lay awake in the darkness many a night, muttering at the shadows around him. He was supposed to be on some medication, but he thought that was a plot against him, so he rarely took it. Still, our policy of welcome applied to him as well. We all just

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gave him his space. Arty had some military training at one point in the past. Some of the Trenchers were a bit scared of what he might do. I thought he was harmless for the most part. We all paid attention at first, because no one had ever seen Arty that amped up, but he lost the room when, at the climax of his speech, he promised that he would ensure that the enemys satellites never found us. People were used to Artys promises, like when he claimed that he would bring the Secretary of the UN to speak with us, so people kind of tuned him out when he promised us that he would destroy the project from within. I was glad that Artys cries for violence fell on deaf ears. After he said his peace, Arty retreated to his corner. I had just decided that our only hope was to appeal to the public when Providence brought us her gift, Reese Dentner. Dentner was a reporter, and s/he was interested in us, both as people and as a community. Or so I thought at the time. We did not have a leader, but I was primus inter pares, the first among equals, and I told Reese our tale. S/he said s/he would help by writing a story that would convince the city and the country that we had a right to this land. S/He promised us that s/he would stop the construction if I gave her/him the exclusive scoop and gave her/him enough time to collect the evidence s/he need. I agreed, and so we were quiet. A month or so later, Reese told me that s/he managed to get me a sit down with Zillias her/himself. I was very excited about the opportunity to voice our complaint directly to the one person who could call this entire thing off. I worked for days on what Id say and how Id present our perspective and our requests. I was even going to play the I knew your mother card if I had to. However, when the big day came, instead of Zillias, I was stuck with the site manager, Emerson Turnkin, and all s/he wanted was to make sure that I kept the rest of the Trenchers out of the way. Turnkin just wanted a cease fire, not a real and lasting peace. I reiterated that our request was simple: we wanted our home back, and I suggested that they move the project to another blighted hole in the city. I could not have imagined the reaction. Turnkin laughed, bitterly, and when I remained silent, s/he exploded! I sat calmly as s/he cursed us all in the most florid terms. Although neither I nor Turnkin knew it, Arty was in earshot the whole time. He knew the land around the Trench better than anyone, and he had found some back way into the site. Before I could respond, he charged, bellowing curses and swinging some kind of construction shovel. Turnkin only escaped because I threw my body between them. My next plan was to stage a sit-in, to take the bad song and make it better by showing our peaceful side. Arty even talked about making it extra dramatic by killing himself on the site of the construction! He said he would light himself on fire, like one of those Buddhist monks, and consecrate the ground with his ashes. This was crazy, even for Arty and none of us really took him seriously. Reese convinced me that a sit-in would only get us arrested, before the story was done, and then there would be no chance of stopping the development. Instead, s/he convinced me to let Arty force them to negotiate in a less drastic way. I wasnt worried; for all of his huffing and puffing, Arty didnt have the tools or the concentration to do anything dangerous, and he wouldnt hurt anyone. So I watched as Arty did a bit of graffiti here and moved some tools over there. Arty called it Operation Turtle, which was kind of cute. All the while, Reese tailed behind him, taking notes. Because they could not find their tools and werent sure what was where, the crew had to start each day repairing the damage. Our non-violent resistance was really getting to them. Construction on the site slowed to a crawl. Little did I know that we had sowed the seeds of our own undoing, and bitter would be our harvest. One day in January, Zillias visited the site, and I had every intention of approaching her/him to plead for our sanctuary. However, before I could reach her/him, everyone on the entire job site saw Zillias rip into to Turnkin for all of the delays and the fact that the project was behind

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schedule. It went on for an hour, and the negativity poisoned the air and killed the spirits of peace in their womb. I fled from that darkness. From there, things really changed. A fence was put up to keep us out. It mostly worked, although Arty could still get in somehow. But now no one on the site cared at all. There was a new sheriff in town, and Zillias was not about let us or anything else slow down the project. I watched as Turnkin, under Zillias orders, cut the safety sweeps. I saw how the workers sped through their jobs, and I watched as they turned their ankles, hurt their hands and smashed their bodies. The second shift was even worse. By then, Turnkin was gone and Zillias ruled the night. I saw a persons foot get run over by a forklift, someone nearly electrocuted by live wires laying in puddles, and many other injuries. In March, I saw one person fall when a ladder slipped beneath her. She was carried off on a stretcher, unmoving, even as Zillias was ordering the next person in line to climb that same ladder. One night in April, Zillias got into a fight with the union when s/he tried to force the ironworkers to do their jobs in the middle of a lightning storm. The only reason that it didnt happen was that the crane person, Micah something or other, stood up to Zillias. S/he said that Zillias was working the crane too hard, and that s/he wasnt going up there to die for her/him. The other workers rallied around her/his leadership, and they refused to work as well. That was the only time I saw Zillias lose a fight. Other than that, all bowed before the unholy hundreds that Zillias used to resolve any dispute. And yet, somehow, I was still the fool. In June, Turnkin finally entered our part of the Trench. S/he said that s/he respected us and what we had accomplished, and that although they could not stop the project from happening, s/he could promise that if we stayed out of the way, there would be a place for us in the new building. S/he showed us the pictures, how the light would come through the roof to light and warm us, and how the building would be powered with the winds own breath. We were all taken in by it, except Arty. Somehow, in the depths of his rage and paranoid fantasy, only Arty could see that Turnkin spoke with a forked tongue. Perhaps Reese knew, too, but s/he did not tell us until much later, in late August, when it was convenient for her/his story. But by then, the wool had been lifted from my eyes, too, and I saw that s/he too was just using us for her/his own purposes. By then, I realized that Reese was writing a tragic tale that needed to serve us up as the victims. There was no hope in the story for us. I wanted to fight on, to sit in, but the remaining Trenchers were tired. They faded away, in ones and twos, until only Arty and I remained. I saved what art I could, taking pictures of our murals and gathering the records of our community. Arty sat, staring into the distance, reading his magazines and muttering about the devil, turning over some kind of large wrench in his hand. When I asked him whether he had stolen it, he replied that it had trespassed on his land and was therefore his. I took that as a yes. I also kept up my efforts to find the miracle that would save our home. On August 24, Zillias karmic debt came due. I was searching through the trash at the site, as I did every day, when I found a discarded piece of paper with the Citys logo in the header. It was a letter from the city inspectors, and it said that the lift wasnt approved! I thought it would buy us another month or two, but I wasnt surprised when Zillias started preparing for the lift anyway. S/he had ignored the law before, and I knew s/he would again. S/he had sold her/his soul to the demon dollar. I will never forget August 31st. I awakened to the sound of winds howling in the tunnel and the steady flow of water streaming through the sluice gates. I knew that Reeses article had been published the night before, and I raced out to see the people, the citizens rallying to our side. But there was no one there but the construction workers and a couple of kids, asking if they

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could have a picture with the mole people. And without a protest, our only hope was delay. Once the giant roofing panels were placed on top of the structure, there would be no going back. When I saw the rains and heard the howling winds, I gave thanks to the kami of the earth and skies that had come to protect us. There was no way they could lift in those conditions. I gave a happy shout, and I turned to celebrate with Arty, but he was nowhere to be found. I went looking for him, but only caught a glimpse of him later at least I think it was him, Im not sure - near the area where the big crane was perched. When I got nearer, he (or whoever it was in that trench coat) was gone. Thats when I saw the crane start moving, and I knew that whatever the gods threw at Tatum Zillias, s/he would never stop. I watched the lift as one watches the executioners sword descending, but I clung to the hope that someone of sense would stop it. When the first lift took place, the panel was literally twisting in the wind, and swinging back and forth like The Pit and the Pendulum. But they pushed on. Then, around 3 p.m., an angel descended. The government agent came down from the managers office. S/He must have heard the screams from the crane, because she immediately raised the red flag. You could see how hard it was for the crane operator to hold the panel in place, mid-lift, and s/he was doing a bad job of it. Then, out of nowhere, Zillias emerged from the managers office, ran down towards the safety officer and started yelling at her. I couldnt hear well enough to know exactly what was said, but it was something about how Zillias was in control and no bureaucrat could stop the lift. Then Zillias grabbed the green flag from the safety inspectors hand and waved it furiously in the direction of the lift operator. It was as if Zillias had angered Aeolus himself, because a split second later, a gust knocked Zillias hard hat off of her/his head. S/he retreated, but no sooner had s/he shut the door to the managers office behind her/him than the strongest wind of the day tore through the job site. It caught the panel, and the crane started to shimmy. I watched, awestruck, as the massive crane began to crumble under its own weight. Panic ensued, and workers were running in every direction. I was paralyzed by their screams, rooted still by the vortex of karma crackling around me. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Arty, his trench coat billowing in the wind, hands raised in terror, or defiance, or victory. That is how I will remember my friend, the last soldier on the battlefield, crushed beneath the weight of his foe. He was dead, and so was Zillias dream. Later, I went through his meager belongings. I found this envelope addressed to Reese Dentner of all people. In it, there was this bizarre manifesto thing. I guess he really meant to make that statement after all. You might think I hate Tatum Zillias, but I do not. Zillias is nothing more than a product of the capitalist culture that eats away at our national soul. But in the face of Tatum Zillias I see the face of the devil, impassively watching the suffering of others. Perhaps if Zillias is convicted, the Trench will be returned to those who love it. Perhaps if s/he is convicted, others will see that life does not have a price, and that no cost can be assigned to a persons home. But I do not wish ill for any person, even one who I saw take the lives of two others for thirty pieces of silver. Life goes on, bra.

London Packard
Signature

December 12, 2012

DATE

31

Statement of Tatum Zillias 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

So you want to know where it all started? It started in the gutter, where I was born, to a homeless mother and a father I never met. We had it all: public assistance, public housing, public schools, and church kitchens, if there wasnt food anywhere else. Life for me aint been no crystal stair, you know? And thats how Franklins Trench started, all those years later. My mother pounded on me from my first breath that I wasnt going to make the mistakes she made. She worked two, sometimes three jobs to pay for tutoring and sports and everything. She made sure I got what she did not. I was my high school salutatorian, and I was studying business at Temple when I realized that the best business was right around me: land. While mom thought I was still taking classes, I gathered together every dime I could beg, borrow, or steal and put money down on a house just north of school. The place was a wreck, and I made lots of mistakes fixing the place up, but in a year, the house looked different, better. When I sold that house, I didnt make much, but it was real money, my money. That gave me the money for the next place, and I did it again. I had to tell my mother, and she was very upset that I had lied to her. But I kept going, house after house. By 1990, I had three employees. Then a Temple classmate asked me to build her a home in Delaware County. I realized that all over Pennsylvania, there were old industrial sites or communities that were undervalued. By 2004, I was building more homes than anyone in the Berks, Bucks, and Chester Counties, buying sites in depressed areas for peanuts and putting up McMansions. In 06, I sold the company to Short & Coors for well, lets just say that Mom lives in one of the houses she used to clean. I had to sign a non-compete agreement through 2009. I used the time to get my degree from Temple, and an MBA with it. When the real estate market collapsed, I didnt get caught up in it, and although Zillias Development pled guilty to several counts of misdemeanor false statements on HUD paperwork from when I was in charge, my name wasnt on any of it. They got fined a few hundred thousand dollars, basically the cost of doing business. I realized that almost everything Id done in my life was for people richer than I was growing up. One day, on the third tee at Aronimink, I realized that there was a huge opportunity coming in public housing. So on January 1, 2010, Project Z was born, with the goal of making the world a better place and keeping me well-funded into my retirement. My new staff and I spent six months identifying possible opportunities, and we found Franklins Trench. The Trench was an eyesore, a 50 deep gash in the city nearly two full blocks long, being used for absolutely nothing. When I saw the concept drawings, I knew that it was the perfect place to show off Project Z to the world. I didnt have the money to do that kind of job without putting my entire fortune on the line, so, using my connections in the city and counties, I arranged to meet with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Mayors Office, and the Commonwealth. I pitched a deal to them: if they would help fund it and let me have the property itself for $1, Project Z would build a public housing development like no other in the world, turning the squatter-infested ditches into the foundation of a new community. It wasnt easy, in these budgetary times, but I got buy-ins through various grants and other organizations for almost 40% of the costs. We built some incentives into the deal that would make it profitable if it was done by the end of 2011 and not too bad a loss if we got the principal work done by October 2012, when the HUD Secretary planned to speak at a conference in town and wanted to visit the site with the Mayor. I knew wed never hit the 2011 deadline, but I set my sights on October 2012 with a vengeance. By the end of 2010, we had a plan in place, we got the land transfer completed and our permits in hand. I hired Emerson Turnkin, who was just the kind of person I wanted: someone who

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could get things done right, and quickly, and someone who understood the regulatory structure enough to cut the necessary corners without endangering any lives. I didnt have much experience with unions, but Turnkin did, and I knew s/he would be tough with them, but fair. I also hired Estratton Lift Services in early 2011. I read their promotional material, studied the cranes specs, and agreed that we needed the biggest crane they had Fightin Phil. I didnt just want any public housing building, I wanted the public housing building. I wanted to turn an urban blight the Trench into a story of success, and I wanted to do it in a 100% sustainable way. I knew that housing recipients often have trouble affording utility bills, and if they need tax money to help, the public pays for that, too. So I wanted to make the building energy-neutral. We designed it with double-paned windows, recycled insulation, and solar power. But regular solar panels arent that effective in the city, and putting them on the roof meant limiting natural light, which meant paying PECO to light the place. I knew that a Japanese firm was working on a new, better solar panel technology, using polymers. The technology required that the polymers be continuous, so we had to build two enormous panels almost a city block long each. And they would still block a lot of the light. In June, 2011, I found the solution: make the polymers dark on sunny days, to get solar power, and light on cloudy ones, when solar would be pointless. We could offset the lost solar power with wind turbines! The engineers were skeptical, but by September, we knew that it worked. However, it was considerably heavier than the original designs, because in order to be efficient, the turbines had to be built into the roof itself. I sent the company a couple million dollars all of what was left of the Project Z public money and told them to build! From then on, I funded the Trench out of my own investment in Project Z, or out of my pocket. Meanwhile, things on the site were moving slowly. Too slowly. I had been focused on landing public works projects in Detroit and in Memphis, and we had won, conditioned on success at Franklins Trench. But six months into the construction, in January 2012, I visited the site, and the foundation was barely laid! I was mortified that was supposed to be done almost two months earlier, and what was done was covered in obscene graffiti. When I confronted Turnkin, s/he mumbled something about some squatters sabotaging the work. I lost it. I just couldnt believe that someone with Turnkins reputation wasnt getting things done! And it got worse. I talked to the workers and the people from ELS, and I realized that Turnkin wasnt running the site, OCIS was. I mean, Im all for worker safety, but this Grace person was straight out of central casting for Pencil Pusher. Instead of just following the Code, they were worshipping it an hour-long safety sweep at the beginning of every day, just in case some squatter did something, followed by a full briefing it was like construction kindergarten! I dont remember my exact words, but I know Turnkin says I said that we can pay for people or something like that. Thats twisting my words. I meant that we can pay for minor injuries, like somebody who trips or has a tool fall on their hard hat. You cant make a construction site 100% safe, and trying to do that was a pointless waste of a fantastic amount of time and money. After that, I started spending a ton of time in the Project Managers office. I started reviewing all the paperwork personally: work plans, regulatory documents, you name it. This was my project, my good name was on the line, and I wasnt leaving anything to chance! I gave Turnkin a simple instruction: you follow the Code and you protect the workers, but you dont do what doesnt have to be done. We put up a fence to keep the squatters out, and we cut the sweep to twenty minutes and the briefing to ten. Sure we had minor violations, citations from OCIS for this and that, but every week, I showed my check to Grace and told my workers to get going. They were really inspired to be free to get things done, and their morale went even higher when I showed that I would pay the workers compensation claims that were accumulating. I mean,

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construction workers understand that there are risks in the work, and they will take them as long as they know that management will do its part if they are hurt. I also started handing out $100 bills if I saw someone doing something especially well. $100, as in Franklins, get it? That violated union rules, of course, but I never got a single grievance! A month or two later, I could see that the work was still falling behind, and I started a second shift. We now had the site active 16 hours a day, 6 a.m. until 10 p.m. The neighbors werent happy, but business was getting done. Then, in April, we got some terrifying news: the panels were done, but they were 2900 tons each. Thats way more than we expected; 2900 tons was over the contractual engineering limit on the crane! I thought we were cooked, but then Micah Estratton explained that engineering limits are always set below maximum capacity. Micah told me that the big crane had handled that load years before with only one issue and it probably could again. But that wasnt our contract, so I had to agree to pay Micah an incentive payment to keep the crane going and to get an additional insurance policy to repair the crane if it broke. The costs were adding up! It seemed like I was tapping my personal savings every week. I told Emerson to write to the City and get their permission, but we never heard back from them, so we went ahead. The most they could do was fine us, anyway, and we had the Mayors backing for the project, so I wasnt worried. By June, I was at the site every day, sometimes from dawn to dusk. Or beyond that, I guess, because we added another shift, so that we could run around the clock. I took an apartment above the site so I could be around all the time. Good thing, too, since I stopped that doped-up crane operator! I was also being pressured to meet the squatters leader to assure them that there would be a place for them in the new building which of course I couldnt control and with the press. I told Turnkin to handle the reporter and to tell the squatters whatever it took to leave us alone. And I was watching the calendar every day, praying that we could hit the October deadline. With all that Id put in, if we missed that deadline, Id be ruined! Im exaggerating, of course, but not by much. The last two weeks in August were the most intense in my career. I watched the roof come off the ships from Hiroshima, and I couldnt have been more proud. The dream of sustainable, modern public housing was in view as was the future of Project Z! The only thing dampening our spirits so to speak was a hurricane brewing in the Gulf of Mexico. It wasnt supposed to make landfall up by us, but even the winds from a dying hurricane could destroy the temporary roofing over the Trench project, and if heavy rains got in, that could destroy weeks of work and set us back hundreds of thousands of dollars. It would also guarantee that we would miss the October bonus deadline, which would leave the project at a very significant loss, proving what my, er, our detractors had been saying all along. On August 30, we held a team meeting. Micah was worried about the weather, and so was Grace from OCIS. But Emerson told me that the temporary roofing probably would not make it through more than a day or so of heavy rain, and three were predicted! So I asked the critical question: is it safe to lift? Grace seemed doubtful, but Micah assured us she could pull it off as long as we got it done by the time the winds really kicked up, which was supposed to be early in the evening. I spoke to the troops, even giving away my big secret I had bought tickets to Bruce Springsteens Labor Day show at Citizens Bank Park for all of them! We still had not received a response from the City about permission for the revised lift plan, but I wasnt going to let bureaucratic delay stop progress. Like I said, I knew we had the Mayors support. On August 31, the big day was finally there. It almost stopped before it started, with that squatter running around, and I was horrified how long it took to get the scene cleared. We had removed the temporary roof, and rain was falling! Still, I watched the first lift in awe of how

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Micah conducted the aerial ballet at least once she got the hang of it. The first hour was a little scary, really. Grace even screamed. After that, she kept moping around, talking about this violation or that one, but none of them had anything to do with the lift, so I told her to zip it. The lift was smooth, even though we had to pause again for the shift change at noon. By the time that the first piece got down, I was pacing my office like a caged animal. It was almost 2 p.m. by the time that they got ready for the second lift. Then, to my horror, Grace demanded to talk to Micah about it again! She said something about a revised weather report. But that report was a couple hours old, and it didnt seem like a big deal to me, just the wind we expected coming a little early. So I called Micah. Micah was totally confident, and s/he said her/his crane could do the job. But after she put down the radio, Grace still was talking about calling it off! Emerson and I held firm, though. She was a regulator, not the boss of the site! We spoke, firmly but calmly, and she gave Micah the green flag. Then she left the office, to watch the lift from the ground. Everything on the second lift started off smooth as silk. The wind was picking up and gusting. You didnt need to look at a weather report to confirm that. You could see Micah in constant motion, fighting to keep the roof in position. S/he was a wizard with that crane! Then, just after 3 p.m., Grace waved the red flag again. At first I thought it was all the noise the crane was making, but Micah didnt think much of that and neither did I. Then I learned the squatter was around again. Well, I could see that Micah wasnt having much fun up there. S/he couldnt even really do a true full stop; s/he had to keep adjusting. And when s/he called me on the radio, it was clear s/he was worried about the growing wind. So I went down to see what the holdup was. Grace wanted another full sweep, but I could tell that Micah didnt have another hour to waste. I ordered the site to do a quick sweep, which the Code permits if there isnt evidence of tampering. They could not find the guy, or anything but a missing tool. I shoved the green flag at Grace, and she held it up, reluctantly. I went back to the office. Everything was going fine for the next couple minutes, until the crane topped out. Then I saw the roof start sliding along, like the sail on my boat, with Micahs face contorted in the cockpit. I heard a ringing, then a snap, and all of a sudden, the cockpit went white. Within seconds, that big crane collapsed like some tinker toys. I watched, horrified, as the roof crashed down. Do I regret what happened? Of course. But do I regret taking charge that day and in the months before? Heck no. I did what had to be done for the good of the project and of the people of Philadelphia. I wanted to give those people a good, sustainable home for them to raise their children to be the next generation of Tatum Zilliases. I wanted to give them what I never had, so that Detroit, and Memphis, and every other American city would follow our lead. That was my dream, and I accept responsibility for it, whether it fails or succeeds. But third degree murder? Are they out of their mind? I followed every rule, and the ones I didnt I paid the mandated penalty without uttering a word of protest. I never, ever wanted to hurt anyone, and ask anybody who worked that site and theyll tell you: nobody cared more about them or did more for them than Tatum Zillias. Graces death is awful, but the squatter? He ruined everything. He destroyed that crane, that roof, Project Z, my vision, and the dreams of hundreds of families. I hope he rots in well, I hope he rots in the ground.

Tatum Zillias
Signature

Dec. 15, 2012

DATE

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Statement of Micah Estratton 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

My name is Micah Estratton, and Im forty-six years old. I have a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Drexel University, but my real education came on the job site. Ive been working in the construction field since I turned sixteen, and Ive been a proud member of the International Union of Operating Engineers for over twenty-five years. From 2002 until 2006, I was the Business Manager of Local 542, a position akin to its President. I have also served on the Board of Directors of the Association of Crane and Rigging Professionals for a decade, and I regularly speak at the annual meeting of the Crane Institutes certification classes. I have received lifetime service awards from Local 542 and from the Association of Wire Rope Fabricators. My mom was a crane engineer, too, and she wouldnt let my sisters and I think of any work as off-limits to us. She was the one who founded Estratton Lift Systems. If youre not a hard hat like me, you probably havent heard of it, but ELS is the Mid-Atlantics premier provider of specialty cranes and sling systems. If you need a specialty machine, you call us. And theres no more special machine in the world, at least to me, than Fightin Phil. Phil was one of the last cranes my mom designed before she passed, and hes a marvel. Since 1988, there hasnt been a higher-lift, lower-footprint crane east of the Mississippi, and Phil has been booked forty-eight weeks a year since the day he lifted his first I-beam. Of course, some of that time hes being assembled and disassembled, but customers are willing to pay for that downtime, too. Hed be booked fifty-two weeks a year if we let him! But every three months we try to take him down and do a full inspection for metal fatigue, and we check and clean all of his engine, transmission and hydraulic components. Prior to August 31, 2012, wed never had a major accident on Fightin Phil, although of course wed had our share of smaller mishaps. The worst we ever had was a snap-drop, when the cables supporting the load snapped. That cost us nearly $1 million in insurance pay-outs, and it could have crushed a worker. We hadnt inspected Phil in over five months when that happened, but after that we started using a highergrade steel in the cables. It hurt our profits, sure, but at ELS, lives are the most important thing. Were also unique in that we contract for both the lift system and its operations staff. We hire only the best and most experienced operators Mom wouldnt even let me operate Phil until I got my ten year pin from the union. But once I got into the chair, Ive never left Phil is the only crane for me. When the Franklins Trench incident happened, Id been working with Phil almost exclusively for over eighteen years, eight hours or more a day, five days a week, at least, probably thirty plus weeks a year. When hes down to be moved or maintained, Ill jump on other systems, just to stay current, but Phils cockpit is my real home. ELS was contacted by Tatum Zillias firm, Project Z, in early 2011. We were going to task Big Tony, a smaller crane based on Phils design, to the job, but in April, Zillias told us that things had changed. The job was going to conclude with lifts of two massive, concave surfaces weighing 2300 tons each. Big Tonys only rated to 2300, and Zillias said the design could change again, so I explained to Zillias that using the crane with the higher load rating would be safer. Zillias asked for the spec sheets for both cranes, and eventually decided to go with Phil, even though it meant paying a substantial extra fee to get Phil out of a prior reservation. A few weeks later, I visited the job site and met the site supervisor, Emerson Turnkin. I wasnt happy to be working with Turnkin, who has a reputation in the construction community for cutting corners and stiffing the union on her/his bills. Plus, Turnkin was known for much smaller projects. But I wasnt in charge. We erected Phil in late September, in a fixed configuration, most of the early lifts were a tiny fraction of what Phil can carry, and Turnkin was surprisingly good. The only thing that upset me was that Turnkin had us lifting even when those squatters

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were present. They werent wearing hard hats or anything, and they often would walk under loads that could kill them! Sometimes they would even do it on purpose, and we would have to hold the load there until they left. Even though I knew Phil could handle it, that can put a lot of unnecessary stress on a crane. I met with Zillias and Turnkin, and once Turnkin got done swearing a blue streak about those mole people, Zillias calmly told us to leave them alone, that it was a political problem to move them out too soon. I knew what Zillias meant: this reporter, Reese Dentner, was always hanging around the squatters leader. Reese asked me for an interview a couple of times, but I dont stick my nose where it doesnt belong. In January 2012, things changed. Zillias visited the site and tore into Turnkin for nearly an hour because we were running a few weeks behind schedule. After that, everything got cut back, especially the down time at the start and end of the day, when we do the safety sweeps and work plans. Id never been on a site that spent so much time on that stuff, but I guess it worked, because without it, accidents increased. The OCIS lady, Grace, was great, but she spent her weekly inspections looking like she had eaten a lemon, and it was now clear that Zillias and Turnkin were running the site, not OCIS. But Zillias paid all the workers compensation claims without challenge, made overtime easy, and s/he started a second shift. Word got around the union that it was a good site to work, even though you had to watch out for yourself. We were turning people away from then on. In April, we got some disturbing news. The panels for the Big Lifts were done, and they weighed over 2900 tons each, far more than we had been told to expect. This was an especially significant problem, because Fightin Phil has a normal maximum engineering load of 2750 tons. A crane can lift a lot more than its maximum engineering load, which is generally set around 85% of its likely failure rating, but you need to request special permission for a load over engineering tolerance. I asked Turnkin to write the City right away, but we never heard back from them, either way. But I knew that Phil could handle it, though; hed done loads between 2800 tons and 3000 tons four or five times in the 90s. The only issue we ever had was a broken hydraulic line or two on one of those super heavy lifts. That just meant we had to stop the lift for a quick repair. Minor inconvenience really. In April, 2012, we idled Phil for the last time. We carefully inspected him for metal fatigue and replaced all the worn or weakened parts. We were especially careful since we knew that we probably would not get a chance before the Big Lifts in August. I wasnt too worried, though: his initial design tolerance was five months, and hes gone as long as six months twice before. When he came online in mid-April, he was good as new. Zillias was upset about the delay, but knew it was foolish to not take the time to prevent a major accident. By June, the intensity doubled again. Everyone knew that we were running against a short clock some D.C. big wig was due to tour the facility in October with the Mayor and our union leaders. It was going to be a real kumbaya moment, if we had the place ready. Zillias was willing to do whatever had to be done to get it there. S/he added an overnight shift, put in incentives, and even took up residence right above the site, so s/he could be there at any time, day or night. I knew that if we nailed this job, Zillias had other work under contract, and that could have meant a lot of money to ELS. I had dreams of improving Phil to take on even heavier loads. It wasnt all roses and chocolates, though; Zillias was a hard driver, and more than once s/he would come flying down to berate Turnkin or light into one of the workers. By the end of the month, my team was pretty drained. There was no rest for us we were the only ones who could operate Phil. I was doing ten hour shifts and so was my partner, Rose Rivett. Then, on July 3, I arrived to find Rose screaming at Zillias, who had apparently hit the kill switch that we install in the Project Managers office, shutting down Phil. I took Roses side

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immediately, but then I learned that she had almost punched a side out of an adjoining building. It turns out she had started taking amphetamines to try to keep up the pace. I had heard about them being available among the site crew, but I never thought one of my people would do that! We moved her to a lift on a more relaxed site, and I hear shes in counseling now, which is great. Usually, I limit myself to ten hour shifts, but without Rose, I was working twelve and fourteen hour days most of July and August. But Ive never had an accident on my sheet, and I didnt get one then. Still takes it out of you, though, especially missing time with the kids. By August 30th, everyone was excited about getting the Big Lifts done. We all knew that the hurricane was coming, and if it hit without the roof in place, months of work would be ruined. Still, as we looked at the weather report, faces were grim. The rain was supposed to get worse. That meant a slick site and the potential for injuries. And the winds could be an issue, especially late in the day, when the edge of what was left of Isaac got closer. Turnkin, Zillias, Grace from OCIS and I worked the problem over and over. There was no doubt there was a risk there, but we felt it was worth it, and Grace didnt stop us. On August 31, 2012, I started my shift a little before 7 a.m., walking the site and looking Phil over. We didnt have time for a complete safety inspection, but wed done one that Monday, and code only requires one every week. Besides, Ive been running Phil most of my adult life; when somethings wrong, I know it. Around 7:15 or 7:30, I started going through my pre-lift checklists, making sure that everything was working. Around quarter to eight, though, the foreman threw up a red flag. I wasnt happy about that, because I wanted to get the lift done before the storm rolled in, but safety comes first. I later learned they found a wrench in Phils gears. I didnt feel it, but thats no surprise. Do you really think an aluminum wrench is going to stop Phil? Thats like trying to stop a steamroller with a Coke can. The full site sweep ate up more than an hour, and they didnt find anything! It was almost 10 a.m. when the roof lifted off. Even though the rain wasnt bad yet the initial part of the lift was stop-and-go, as I figured out how the concave panel would respond to Phil and the wind. It was a good thing I took it slow, because I almost lost it when the first big gust hit. Still, I soon had the hang of it, and after one more false start, I got it up to apex and slid it over. Once it was over the Trench, it was a matter of lowering it slowly and letting the folks on the ground put it in place. That was supposed to happen around noon, but we had run too late, and the shifts on the ground changed. So I had to hold it in place for fifteen minutes while they switched and another fifteen while the new guys did their initial safety check. If that damn squatter hadnt hit the site, the timing would have been fine. Instead, we didnt touch down until almost 1:30. At this point, things were getting worse, weather wise, and my crew was pretty beat. I was worried about that wind, so I called Turnkin and asked whether to proceed with the second lift. I already knew what her/his answer would be. Zillias got on the phone and told me we were a go. We all knew the wind was only going to get worse, so we moved as quickly as possible to get Phil back into starting position. Then, around 2:15, I got a call from the Project Managers office. Grace asked if the lift was safe, given the load and the wind in the revised weather report that everyone at the site got during the shift change at noon. I told her that the load and the wind were both within Phils 100% tolerance, which was mostly true. After that, I saw some kind of discussion going on. They were taking their time, so I called back and told Grace that we ought to get the lift done fast if we were going to do it at all. I figured shed call it off for sure, but instead I saw her green flag me. I gave Phil a pat, and the second piece lifted at 2:45. Right away, the lift was a bit different. The wind was gusting, so I had to adjust quickly to the changes. Because Phil is not a single-piece, fixed point crane, hes vulnerable to structural failure if he tips or the load pulls him too strongly. I had an immediate near-disaster, and I could

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hear Phil straining, but I got it under control in seconds. They may have been scary seconds, but we were fine. I know every sound that crane makes, and he wasnt quitting on me. Because I now had a feel for things, I got the second piece up more quickly. Around 3:10, I had it near-apex when another red flag waved. So I had to stop, compensating for the wind with very slight movements. They didnt find anything wrong except a missing fire ax or something. Code violation, maybe, but not a safety hazard. I got on the horn and told them to hurry up, that we didnt have time for another hour-long sweep. I wasnt sure I could handle that, or that Phil could, and the wind was really howling. I watched Zillias and Grace have some kind of discussion, but my eyes were mostly on that roof. At 3:20 or so, I saw the green flag wave again and I started moving the panel again towards the roof. I am mostly certain it was Grace who gave the go signal, but like I said, it was tense up there and I was focused on the roof. The lift was smooth for about five minutes. But then Phil and I hit apex, the highest point of the lift. As the roof panel cleared the last building, it caught the wind fiercely. The wind was so strong that I almost couldnt spin Phil and slacken the lines enough to compensate. But I got control again or at least I thought I did when all of a sudden, I saw the hydraulic light blink on, and I couldnt spin fast enough. That was all she wrote. The wind caught that roof, dragging it to my left. I was reaching for the auxiliary hydraulics when I heard the strut snap. In a crane like Phil, each piece supports the next in a precisely balanced structure. One break puts twice the load on the next piece, which snaps, putting a triple load on the next one. Its almost impossible to stop the cascade once it starts. I slammed the red airbag button as Phil came apart beneath me. After that, all I felt was falling, and all I heard were screams. When I woke up, I was in the ER. I was in and out of consciousness over the weekend, and I wasnt discharged until the following Tuesday. I have read Quinn Baxters report, and I spoke to her after I got back from the ER. I respect Quinn for all s/hes done for workers, but s/he treats every violation like its a capital offense. Stuff happens. Tools get laid down wrong, but we know not to step on a rotary saw. Workers climb ladders that are too steep every day, and I cant remember anyone falling. Yeah, we should have been better about wearing our vests, and Tommy forgot his steel-toes, but thats not what brought Phil down. Nor was it the concrete. I would not have gone up there myself if Phil wasnt stable, and we had just lifted 2900 tons, no problem. Ill mourn for Grace, and for that squatter, too, I guess. But theyre not dead because we didnt fill out paperwork every time we checked the job site or because Kate Hooper left the keys in her truck. So what did happen? I wondered that, too. I wondered how Phil could have failed. I wondered whether we should have insisted on a regular maintenance schedule or if I should have called off the second lift. For the first few weeks, I thought it must been the sheer force of the wind. But then I heard about that squatter and that fire axe. If hed chopped my hydraulic lines at the wrong time, that couldve slowed the spin enough to tip Phil over. Of course, even a brand new hydraulic kit can snap from the kind of stress that gusting winds and a big lift bring. And that can happen without warning, even in mid-turn, if the stresses are high enough. Still, I am sure I had Phil under control. I just know I did. I had the green flag too.

Micah Estratton
Signature

December 7, 2012
DATE

39

Statement of Reese Dentner 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

My name is Reese Dentner, and Im a reporter. Its my job to comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable, and above all to sell copy doing it. Like Rita Skeeter, Im a freelance investigator, a finder of truths and a teller of tales. Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair. Im well aware of the irony of testifying on behalf of Tatum Zillias, a person I have spent my life pursuing. The judge has given me immunity to testify, so that I can be as honest as possible about what I learned and how I learned it. So let me be clear at the outset: I think Tatum Zillias is a snake who would sell her/his own mother for the right price, and the rest of us at a substantial discount! In my years, I have rarely seen a person who more demonstrates the power and the danger of true capitalism. Theres a reason that Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle, and its the same reason I write about people like Tatum Zillias: someone has to stop them before their cut-rate safety budgets maim or kill everyone who works for them. On the other hand, Im not a big fan of witch hunts unless I am the one holding the torch. And theres no doubt that this might as well be The Crucible. Theres more grandstanding going on here than at a Premier League soccer stadium. The City, OCIS, HUD they were all in bed with Tatum Zillias, all lining up to buy the Emerald City mirage that Zillias was selling. And now, after the very same practices that they allowed Zillias to follow for their political agenda have gone wrong, theyre the same hounds baying for her/him to be tried for Murder 3, not involuntary manslaughter, which would be a lock. Its all politics, and theres no dirtier sport out there. I should know; my career was very nearly derailed by the same kind of thing. My family is from the United Kingdom, but I was born in the U.S. My father was an American diplomat, and we moved around a lot. So Ive seen a bit of the world, but I fell in love with America. I attended Villanova University, where I got my bachelors degrees in English and Communication, with a specialty in journalism, and masters degree in journalism from Syracuse University. I was hired straight away by a paper in London. I suppose I got in my fair share of trouble, but nothing like the scandal that broke when I was accused of paying private investigators to hack cell phone and email accounts of members of the royal family! Apparently, that kind of thing is frowned upon, but on account of my dads position, they agreed to drop the investigation as long as I turned over the information I had not yet published, renounced my British citizenship, and I never, ever came back. It was a good deal, and I took it. But still, politics. Anyway, it turns out that being accused of criminal behavior in pursuit of a story makes it a bit more challenging to get hired by a main stream media source, so I started my career as an independent journalistic professional, writing pieces on contingency for TMZ, muckraker.com, The Sludge Report, and Redbook. I found my way to Philly in 2003, when I left New York over a misunderstanding of the states rules regarding trespassing and sifting through residents trash. I love the land of brotherly love! Between the intense love and hatred of its sports teams, two functioning daily papers, the occasional corruption indictment, and lax rules regarding confronting wrongdoers in the street with a video camera, it was perfect for me. Thats how I met Tatum Zillias. A hundred dollar bill and I got a tip from a trusted source at the Pennsylvania Bureau of Occupational and Industrial Safety that Zillias had one of the worst safety records of any developer in the area. I snuck onto some of her/his worksites and boy was that right! Tools were everywhere, and I even slipped and fell in an oil slick and broke my ankle. I was going to sue, but Zillias threatened to sue me for trespassing. So instead I did one better: I wrote an expose called Unsafe at Any Speed that was published in the Inquirer and picked up by The Delaware County Times and The Morning Call. From what Ive heard, Zillias

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paid out thousands in fines. A few days later, I got a very nice note from Zillias, saying that all of my statements checked out and thanking me for my work. How bizarre! Anyway, when I heard that Zillias was interested in the Franklins Trench, I knew it would be journalistic gold, much better than the story on the riverfront casinos I had been pouring my money into. So I went to the site and found to my shock that people actually lived there. Some call them squatters, or even mole people (since they live underground most of the time), but I called them perfect sources. I didnt need to trespass onto the site if there were people already there, especially since I could just set up in the building next door with a high-powered camera and a laser microphone. As I got to know the squatters, I got a sense of the personalities involved. London Packard was the self-appointed leader, a real blowhard who fancied her/himself a labor organizer or something. I let London know that s/he was the star of my article, but that was a lie. The person who interested me the most was Arty Dent, a guy with a military background who was also living there. Packard was a deal-maker, a conciliator, but Dent was a classic aggressor. He had studied history under the G.I. Bill, and he had all the rhetoric down. He was also on several different anti-psychotic medications, when he would bother to take them, for his various mental problems. It made it hard to know when he was speaking about reality or about the complex fantasy world he seemed to have, where the Project Z workers were aliens and that big crane was their mother ship. Whichever it was, it made Dent the most interesting character in my story, so I spent a ton of time with him. He said that he had worked on aircraft of some kind, bombers, I think, as a mechanic and bombardier, back when you had that position. Hed done some horrible things he would not discuss, or he said he had, anyway. I checked the Air Force and Navy records, and hes not in them. Those are the only American branches that flew bombers like that. The only military records for an Arthur Dent are for someone in the Army Corps of Engineers. Anyway, Dent was obsessed with resisting the loss of his home, which I could understand, having been forced to move myself several times. For Dent, though, the Trench was a place like no other, sheltered underground, where he claimed that the satellites could not find him. And nobody else really cared; he was weird, and the other squatters gave him space. He knew the tunnels, though, and he took me around and showed me back ways into the job site, where he would go with some half-used spray paint he got from local gang kids or some metal he had pried out of some long-forgotten subway station. First he would look for food or loose scrap on the site, then he would make as much mischief as he could. Usually that meant moving tools (he never stole them, because he said he wasnt a criminal) or tagging the machines, but sometimes he would just do things that he claimed changed the aura of the place. He called it Operation Turtle, because it was meant to stop the construction and preserve the endangered Trenchers. He would often walk away in the middle of a job, without any comment, to go sleep or read. Regardless, he would mutter to himself as he walked around, quoting things from the Revolutionary War or classic texts, like how a man owned property because he improved it, and any government that would take it from him was a tyranny and not entitled to support. Through the latter half of 2011, the site was not well secured, so you could get a good look at everything. However, the safety issues were minimal. It was pretty much a journalistic dud. But then Zillias came back in January, and things got hot again. From my perch above, with my long-range mic, I heard Zillias reaming out Emerson Turnkin, going on and on about how they could pay for anything but time and how time was the only thing that mattered. Turnkin tried to blame the squatters, which was ridiculous, and Zillias called her/him on it. They also started a second shift and put up a fence, which really cut into our investigative activities. After a while, I

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92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138

left a wire cutter in a ditch near Artys bedroll, and he found it. He said it was a gift from God, but anyway, pretty soon we had a hole in the fence and we could get back to looking in on things. Now this was more like it: the site was a mess again, even without our help. People kept getting injured, almost all minor stuff, and I saw a couple of guys decide to fake an injury just to get the workers comp. But Zillias paid them anyway! Im going to do an article on that soon. Its called Workers Romp: Liars Costing YOU Money. Catchy, isnt it? Things were really looking up, and I started taking lots more notes. This wasnt just an article; it was All The Presidents Men! I decided that I would write my piece, Trench Warfare, and time it for the day before the big lift, when the building would officially be ready for the Mayor and the HUD Secretary. I was also hearing rumors that lots of other big wigs wanted in: the EPA Administrator (because it was so green), the Japanese ambassador, even the governor. With that kind of attention, an article like mine would be a big hit. I even got a crane operator to act as my lead source and confirm all of my suspicions about Zillias and the way the site operated. She later got fired, though, I think because they figured out she was passing me info. Through July, Arty was kind of out of it, even more than usual. Most of the squatters had moved on by then, and only a few remained. Thats when I heard from London about what they had been told about there being spots reserved for them in the new building. I checked around, and that was a total lie. Arty understood immediately, and he announced that he was going to work on executing his Master Plan. I saw a lot less of him in August, but his sleeping area had a lot of books in it. They were mostly kids books on trains and trucks, but one had pictures of construction vehicles. The rest were old Sports Illustrateds, with a bunch of words underlined. Then, on August 29, I finally tracked him down again. He looked totally calm, like he was back on his meds, although he denied that was true. He said that he had a plan: when the crane lifted the roof, he was going to throw himself off the building next door or go back to his original plan of lighting himself on fire. I was really worried for him, and I explained that his death would not mean anything to Zillias. He thought about that for a while, and then he smiled and said Youre right. That would be a stupid way to die. I will figure out a better plan. I have to strike at the mother ship to lower the aliens shields. I have to make the Hive Mother bleed. Then they will see that we can kill them. I didnt know what that meant, but I have some ethics. I called the police to warn them, trying to save his life. By the time they got there, though, all that was left of him were his books. Everything else was gone. I saw Arty for the last time on August 31, 2012. I had been doing the morning shows in Philly, following up on the overnight success of Trench Warfare, and I got to the site a little after noon. I got seriously dirty looks from everybody, because the article not only gave the history of Project Z and Zillias, but it also showed what a jerk and buffoon Emerson Turnkin was. So they were not happy with me, and the workers didnt like how I explained that their union bosses got bought off in order to ignore the safety problems or how they cheated the workers comp system. I got on my scope and I saw Arty, in his trench coat, at the edge of the fence, staring at the big crane, Fightin Phil. He had his hands up, and he looked like he was praying. His coat was dirty, so I assume that he had been on the worksite sometime that day. He didnt have a bag on him or anything, though, so I dont think hed stolen any tools. By the time I got down there, he was gone. I wasnt surprised; he had a million ways in and out of the area around the site. I still have the picture I took of him, but Im saving it for the book. Its a great image worth a Pulitzer itself! a crazy homeless guy in a trench coat, wind whipping his red hair around like an ancient Visigoth, calling on his gods to strike down his enemies. The operator, Micah Estratton, had never agreed to be interviewed for my piece, but even I didnt envy her/him that day. You could see her/him fighting the controls from the start, and I

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talked to a source I had developed on her/his team, and he said that s/he had nearly lost control of the crane first thing in the morning. Anyway, I watched them lower that roof on with much difficulty. Around 3:00, during the second big lift, I could hear the metal on the crane straining. I tried to get some on the ground information but my long range mic was nearly useless with the winds howling around me. I only picked up a fragment of a conversation between Grace Hopper from OCIS and Zillias. At one point, shortly before the crane collapsed, I heard Hopper yelling I cant reach.... I guess you can do you want. you proceed. The mic kept cutting out, but Grace always struck me as a reasonable person. I was shocked that they allowed the lift to go. I tried to talk to the important players after the crane collapsed, but no one would see me. I even dressed up as a nurse late one night to get an exclusive with Micah Estratton, but s/he was so drugged that s/he couldnt say anything but hydraulics and too slow. Tatum Zillias refused to talk to me, as did Emerson Turnkin. Things died down, until the DA announced that they were going after Zillias for murder. That got me on CNN! I told them what Ill tell you: the whole trial is a farce, designed to distract people from the fact that the city didnt do its job and disapprove that lift, or inspect the site, or do much of anything. Tatum Zillias isnt an engineer, and he/she isnt a crane operator. Im not sure Zillias had ever built something bigger than a few thousand square feet. S/hes got money, but s/hes big picture. Emerson Turnkin knows construction, Micah Estratton knows cranes, and OCIS was on site the whole time, but didnt have the guts to shut things down, because they didnt want the bad publicity any more than HUD did. Zillias was going to push to get things done fast, and it was someones job to stop her/him. Tatum Zillias is an awful person and cheapskate, but a murderer? Thats just silly. I hate to say I told you so, but I knew something like this was going to happen and the prediction I made in my article couldnt have been more true. The only person who talked to me after the crane collapsed, ironically, was Arty. A few days after his body was recovered, London Packard brought me a sealed envelope from Artys things that was addressed to me. London and I opened it together, and in it was this weird, folded up piece of paper. I guess that was the Master Plan, although it looked to me like a pocketful of crazy. So thats about all I have to say about this tragedy, that is until my book on the topic The Devil in the Trench is released by Harper Collins next year. Were trying to get it done by the anniversary. Come to think of it, maybe I should be testifying on the other side of this case. After all, theres no better hook for an awards committee than a person imprisoned for a crime s/he did not commit, struggling to find justice. Ill sell more books than The Faculty Club!

Reese Dentner
Signature

December 6, 2012
DATE

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EXHIBIT LIST
Exhibit 1: Exhibit 2: Exhibit 3: Exhibit 4: Exhibit 5: Exhibit 6: Exhibit 7: Exhibit 8: Exhibit 9: Exhibit 10: ELS Catalog Page for Fightin Phil Artistic Rendering of Franklins Trench Construction Site Drawing MOU between HUD, City of Philadelphia and Project Z Term Sheet between ELS and Project Z for Crane Rental Official OCIS Report re: Crane Collapse Weather Reports taken from August 31st (3 different times) Article by Reese Dentner Trench Warfare Arty Dents Manifesto Letter from City of Philadelphia

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Estratton Lift Services Catalog 2010 page 27

Franklins Trench Artistic Rendering David Fox on behalf of Project Z June 2012

-----------------------------------------------------------------------MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING This Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between and among Project Z, Inc. (Project Z); the City of Philadelphia (the City); and the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) relating to the disposition of the property between 17 th and 19th streets south of Spring Garden Street in the City of Philadelphia, identified more specifically on the attachments hereto and commonly known as Franklins Trench. The complete terms of this agreement shall be spelled out in the contract executed herewith, but they shall be substantially these: 1. Project Z shall be named the developer of the Franklins Trench project, and it shall be responsible for the construction thereon of a multi-family apartment building (the Franklins Trench Development) for use as part of HUD and the Citys efforts to improve the quantity and quality of public housing in Southeastern Pennsylvania. 2. Project Z shall acquire Franklins Trench from the City for a price of $1. 3. The City and HUD shall enter into an exclusive lease for the Franklins Trench Development, as follows: a. The lease shall have a duration of thirty (30) years, commencing on the date that the Franklins Trench Development is deemed safe for occupancy by at least 200 families by the relevant federal, state and municipal authorities. b. Project Z shall serve as the landlord and operator of the Franklins Trench Development, and it may collect rent and fees in accordance with HUD regulations, not to exceed the maximum allowed by HUD. c. LEED (environmental) Certification Incentives: i. If the Franklins Trench Development shall be deemed a LEED Certified building, documenting its low environmental impact, Project Z shall receive an additional incentive payment not to exceed $25 per family per month to operate the Franklins Trench Development; or ii. If the Franklins Trench Development shall be deemed a LEED Gold certified building, documenting its very low environmental impact, Project Z shall receive an additional incentive payment not to exceed $50 per family per month to operate the Franklins Trench Development; or iii. If the Franklins Trench Development shall be deemed a LEED Platinum certified building, documenting its extremely low environmental impact, Project Z shall

receive an additional incentive payment not to exceed $100 per family per month to operate the Franklins Trench Development. 4. At the conclusion of the lease described in Paragraph 3, the property shall be owned by Project Z, which will control all future sale and/or uses of the property and any income therefrom. Such use or sale shall be solely in Project Zs discretion. 5. For its work in developing the Franklins Trench property, Project Z will be paid as follows: a. Upon completion of all structural work, including all roofing: i. On or before December 31, 2011, $30 million. ii. On or before October 31, 2012, $25 million. iii. On or after November 1, 2012, $15 million. b. Upon completion of all additional work, including all plumbing, electrical, and decorative work as provided in the contract, $5 million. 6. The payments described in Paragraph 5, above, shall constitute the only direct payments to Project Z for completion of this work. Project Z shall in no case be directly paid moneys other than those described in Paragraph 5, above. 7. All work done by Project Z will comply with applicable federal, state and local regulations and building and construction codes, including all Office of Construction Inspection and Safety (OCIS) codes. a. If a violation of a federal, state or local regulation, building or construction code is alleged, the penalty for that violation shall be as set forth in that code. b. If such a violation results in serious bodily injury, the payments required by the contract may be reduced, at the City and HUDs discretion, by as much as 10%. c. If such a violation results in death, the City and HUD may cancel the contract.

Tatum Zillias obo Project Z

Signature

11.12.2010
DATE DATE

Sarah Kaufman

City of Philadelphia

Nov. 12 2010
November 12, 2010

Jayne Bird Grode

United States Department of Housing and Urban Development

DATE

-----------------------------------------------------------------------TERM SHEET This term sheet is reached between Project Z, Inc. (Project Z) and Estratton Lift Systems (ELS), contingent on execution of a final contract including the following terms: 1. Project Z contracts with ELS for the rental of two heavy-duty, high-lift construction cranes, identified herein by their nicknames, Fightin Phil and Lil Betsy (collectively, the Cranes) for use at a construction site known as Franklins Trench. 2. The term shall be July 1, 2011 October 31, 2012. Project Z may extend the term by up to two months by paying the monthly contract rate, plus an additional 25%. 3. The rental price shall be $100,000/month, for a total minimum rental of $1.3 million. 4. In addition, because Fightin Phil was committed to another project, Project Z shall pay an additional $250,000 to compensate ELS for the termination fee it will incur and the loss of business good will from that cancellation. 5. ELS will provide certified operators sufficient to keep both Cranes in operation for ten hours per day. Should additional operators be required, ELS will provide them, and Project Z shall compensate ELS at a rate of $100/hr./operator. 6. Project Z shall have final say over whether any lift shall occur, except that: a. Project Z personnel may be overridden by any governmental official with such authority;

b. Should Project Z request a dangerous or otherwise complex or challenging lift with either crane, ELS may require Project Z to insure against damage to that cranes; and c. In the event of death or serious bodily injury stemming from the operation of the Cranes in such a lift, Project Z will indemnify ELS and hold ELS harmless. 7. Project Z shall not ask ELS to use any lift system in an unsafe manner, and Project Z shall call for uses of both Cranes as they are intended and within their safe tolerances, as described in Attachment A. 8. ELS will comply with applicable federal, state and local regulations and construction codes, including all Office of Construction Inspection and Safety (OCIS) codes.

Tatum Zillias
Tatum Zillias President, Project Z, Inc.

Micah Estratton
Authorized Representative Estratton Lift Systems

Attachment A

Since 1988, the pride of Estratton Lift Systems has been Fightin Phil, ELS custom take on the classic Lampson LTL-2600 Trans Lift Crane. Due to ELSs proprietary engineering and mechanical improvements, however, Phil has a lift capacity that exceeds even the LTL-2600, making it the strongest, heaviest-lift crane of its kind east of the mighty Mississippi and north of the Mason-Dixon line. Phil is fully inspected and retooled every few months and can be either trucked in or rebuilt on site. Remember: while a regular LTL-2600 is mobile, you can request Phil in a fixed configuration, anchored into the ground. Not only does that increase lift capacity, but it minimizes Phils footprint, making Phil ideally suited to heavy lifts in an urban environment. As we do with all of our complex list systems, ELS provides trained, highly experienced operators who have used Phil for years. You just tell us where to be and when, and Phil can be there, moving loads like no other. Like the city where Phil was designed, ELS may not be the biggest or fanciest out there, but you wont find better.

Technical/Engineering Specifications (Fixed Position):

Type: Transporters: Height: Boom Length: Jib Length: Cable length: Operators: Counterweights: Assembly Time: Accident History: Modified Lampson Transi heavylift crane None (in fixed position) 467 ft. 500 ft. 240 ft. (either Lampson 1100 or MEC27AB) 40,000 ft. 4 (in fixed position; 4 if mobile) 3750 tons (fillable on site) 2-4 weeks
Mobile Configuration Depicted

None

Technical/Engineering Tolerances (Fixed Position):

Lift Capacity (flat surface) (fixed position) (U.S. Tons)

0-2400 2400-2600 2600-2750 2750 maximum threshold
1

Statistical Key and Notes -----------Safe to operate ELS 2750 Proceed with caution Proceed with extreme caution DO NOT OPERATE
(unless prior approval from municipality and/or ELS is obtained)

Max Sustained Wind1 (mph) at Lift Capacity (fixed position)2

2

0-13 13-18 18-24 24 maximum threshold

Max Wind Gust3 (mph) at Lift Capacity (fixed position)4

0-20 20-25 25-30 30 maximum threshold

Maximum Sustained Wind is an average wind speed during a 2-minute interval. Sustained winds are generally measured at a height of 10 meters (~32.8 feet). Winds may vary depending on lift height. Maximum engineering sustained wind lift capacity was calculated using flat surfaces in a lift configuration approved by the Association of Crane and Rigging Professionals and the American Society of Safety Engineers. Maximum Wind Gust is the maximum 3 -second wind speed forecast to occur within a 2-minute interval at a height of 10 meters (~32.8 feet). Wind gusts may vary depending on lift height. Maximum engineering wind gust lift capacity was calculated using flat surfaces in a lift configuration approved by the Association of Crane and Rigging Professionals and the American Society of Safety Engineers. Maximum wind tolerances for convex or concave objects may be lower.

Note

Maximum threshold is set at 85% of tested failure rate

Note: Regularly scheduled maintenance must be performed to ensure that Fightin Phil continues to operate at optimal performance levels and that metal fatigue does not occur. Fightin Phil should be inspected weekly (after approximately 40 hours of lifts), and a full disassembly and inspection is recommended every 16 to 20 weeks, depending on season and long-term weather conditions and is performed by ELS at the direction of the Construction Site Supervisor or other authorized personnel. The client is responsible for paying for the cranes rental during these periods.

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Final Report re: August 31, 2012 Collapse of Crane Fightin Phil Prepared By: Quinn Baxter, Senior/Lead Investigator Location: Deaths: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (19 th Street, south of Pennsylvania Ave.) 2 (1 civilian, 1 government)

Responsible Officials: Tatum Zillias (developer); Emerson Turnkin (Project Manager); Micah Estratton (Crane Operator) Atmospheric Conditions: Collapse occurred on windy, rainy day with limited visibility. Winds were sustained at 10-17 mph at time of collapse, and may have gusted as high as 28 mph. All measurements taken at Philadelphia International Airport (approx. 7.5 miles from site). Executive Summary: The collapse of the crane Fightin Phil resulted from a shocking lack of regard for common sense, regulations, and proper construction procedures by Project Z. These violations included failing to properly seat the cranes support pylons, lifting an amount in excess of the cranes maximum capacity without state or local approval, and lifting during high winds. Factual Findings: Upon examination, crane Fightin Phil had collapsed completely. Preliminary findings consistent with cascading collapse of operator-left front side. Examination of northwestern support leg consistent with complete metal failure. Numerous other areas of crane show evidence of sheer or metal failure, consistent with cascading collapse. Examination of engine, hydraulics and drive gears was hampered by collapse of crane, which destroyed much of same. This damage could have caused or followed the collapse itself. Portions of hydraulics, engines, wiring and crane had been removed post-fall, before a complete investigation was possible, most likely by scrappers seeking to sell same.

Limitations: Time on site was limited due to weather. Light was fading when the site was declared safe for examination, and investigation was limited for ensuing two days by pouring rain, high winds, and lightning. By the time investigation could be restarted, substantial shifting of wreckage had occurred, and wreckage showed some signs of looting. Narrative: At 2:45 p.m., the second lift of the day commenced, despite the rains and gusting winds. The object being lifted, a piece of roof weighing some 2900 tons, was greater than 85% maximum tolerance for the crane. Wind was initially predicted to be at 5-17 mph sustained, gusting to 22 mph. However, at noon, that prediction was revised, and winds were expected to be 10-20 mph, with gusts to 23-26 mph. According to interviews with Tatum Zillias, s/he was unaware of this revision. According to Emerson Turnkin, Zillias was aware of it, but chose to proceed. At 3:15, the forecast was again amended to include a wind warning (sustained winds of 25 mph or greater). Site personnel had stopped checking the weather, and they were unaware of this revision. Immediately upon lifting, witnesses report that the roof panel began swinging on the crane line, indicating significant wind effects. Approximately twenty-five minutes into the lift, a halt was called. The crane did not fully stop moving, which is permitted only to compensate for load shift. Load shift was visible, indicating that wind effects were sustained or may have increased. At approximately 3:20, the crane operator began the apex portion of the lift. At approximately 3:25, as the lift neared its highest point, the roof being lifted cleared the tallest surrounding building. Shortly thereafter, winds gusted, and the roof began pitching and yawing to the left. The crane operator was able to compensate, and began to recover to a neutral position. Operator also reports a possible hydraulic failure resulting, reportedly, in the operator being unable to compensate as the wind pulled the load beyond its tolerable operating range. Witnesses report metallic noise, followed by sheer. At approximately 3:28, the operator-left (northern) side of the crane collapsed. Witnesses report loss of tension in crane lines and support buttress buckling, followed by collapse of operator-front-left (northwestern) support leg. Cascading collapse followed. Code Violations Observed at Site: 1. Access road was not properly graded or filled with asphalt, as required for the size of vehicles routinely transiting that space. 2. Tools were spread throughout the site. (12 minor violations (wrenches, hammers, screwdrivers) and 2 major violations (rotary tool on scaffold; loose axe).) 3. West Scaffold 3 was not properly secured. 4. North Scaffold 4 was not properly secured. 5. No records were kept of morning inspections on either of the cranes on site. 6. No records were kept of evening inspections for the north side crane. 7. Records of evening inspections for the building crane, Fightin Phil, are inadequate to show diligence in inspecting same. 8. Inadequately secured vehicles: i. Minor finding: key left in F-350 Truck, NJ license NYB72G. ii. Major finding: key left in north side crane.

9. No documentation of bi-hourly site sweeps. 10. No documentation of appropriate ratio of supervisors to workers. 11. Inadequate number of first aid kits. 12. Inadequate number of automatic defibrillators. 13. Seven (7) workers not wearing appropriate safety vests. 14. One (1) worker not wearing approved safety footwear. 15. One (1) inadequately labeled flammable liquid. 16. Two (2) spills of slippery liquid. 17. Inadequate signage: inadequate presence of Hard Hat Area warning signs. 18. Inadequate signage: inadequate presence of Men Working Above warning signs. 19. Gap in fence on south end of work area. 20. Ladder too steeply graded: north side. 21. Insecured pylons: density of concrete on northeast anchor for Fightin Phil less than manufacturer recommendation, visibly cracked from wear. 22. Insecured pylon: density of concrete on northwest anchor for Fightin Phil less than manufacturer recommendation. 23. Insecured pylon: density of concrete on southeast anchor for Fightin Phil less than manufacturer recommendation, visibly cracked from wear. Additional Contributing Factors Other Than Violations: 1. Three workers had worked over 70 hours per week in preceding month. While permissible, OCIS recommends workers in high fatigue environments not work more than 60 hours in three consecutive weeks without additional rest time. 2. Per interviews with Emerson Turnkin and others, management did not emphasize safety culture or on going beyond the requirements of the code to make work site safe. 3. Per interviews with Tatum Zillias, Emerson Turnkin and others, management dangerously rushed work in order to meet economic or political objectives, inevitably resulting in site conditions that posed clear risk to workers. 4. Management failed to carefully monitor the metal fatigue of work equipment. 5. Management failed to check weather reports throughout second lift. 6. The lift was performed outside the manufacturer tolerances for windage. 7. The lift was likely performed outside the manufacturer tolerances for lift weight. Conclusion: Management failed to ensure crane was properly maintained and workers were properly rested, then over-loaded the crane in an attempt to meet an artificial timetable. Management then attempted lift despite dangerous, unmonitored winds, failing to recognize the danger inherent in lifting a convex object under the circumstances. The consequences were both predictable and tragic: managements failures caused the deaths of two individuals. /s/ Quinn Baxter, 9/22/2012 Senior/Lead Investigator

Supervisory Approval This report is approved, with the following caveats: 1. Finding 2 is rejected. There is insufficient evidence that these tools were located in the places noted prior to the collapse. 2. Finding 3 is rejected. There is insufficient evidence that the scaffold was unsecured prior to the collapse. 3. Finding 7 is modified as follows: Records of evening inspections for the building crane, Fightin Phil, do not show the expected level of precision for complete inspections. 4. Finding 8(ii) is mitigated to minor violation. Interview indicates crane was abandoned during collapse. Key should have been removed, but circumstances demand lenity. 5. Finding 16 rejected. There is insufficient evidence of spills prior to the collapse. 6. Findings 21-23 moved to Additional Findings. The role of these pylons, if any, in the collapse is uncertain. 7. Contributing Factor 3 is modified as follows: Per interviews with Tatum Zillias, Emerson Turnkin and others, management rushed work in order to meet economic or political objectives. 8. Contributing Factors 4 and 5 are modified by adding the following sentence: The role of this failure, if any, in the collapse cannot be determined. /s/ Beatrice Hicks, 10/5/2012 Director, Philadelphia Field Office

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Weather update Friday August 31 12am

Weather update Friday August 31 12:05pm

Weather update Friday August 31 3:15pm

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Theres a scar in this City of Brotherly Love, and it runs deep. Cut a century ago, by a railway line you wont even find on a Monopoly board, the strip of depressed land just north of Callowhill St. and south of Spring Garden St. is a stark reminder of failed industrialism. For decades, this area of the City, commonly known as Franklins Trench, has been rarely discussed and always ignored. Ignored, that is, until Tatum Zillias, a developer, spun a vision so gleaming and golden that it captured the minds and imagination of politicians far and wide, from Broad and Market all the way to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And now, with the biggest crane on the East Coast about to lift the largest roof panel this citys ever seen onto the product of that ego, Zillias vision of a Band-Aid is now clear for all to see. Harkening back to her/his impoverished beginnings, Zillias claimed the trench between 17th and 19th streets as her/his artistic rendering of Franklins Trench - Courtesy of Project Z own and the future home of the downtrodden. Zillias plan forged a new way and a new means of meshing socioeconomically classes together into a scheme that made Section 8 look like the late 80s Phillies. And just like one of our beloved sports teams in this City, when you are winning no one cares, but as soon as you start to lose, the ire of the masses descends upon you. You can consider me Zillias latest Philly fan, because its time to put on sunglasses and look behind the emerald curtain. The story you find there is as disappointing and dispiriting as Cliff Lees run support. Look inside Project Zs glossy brochures and what you will see is nothing but airy landscaping and happy, theoretical residen ts. They refer to Franklins Trench as a blight. But they dont tell you, its already a home. In all of Project Zs propa ganda and the mayors press conferences, there isnt a single mention of the living, breathing people who have made Franklins Trench their own for the past forty years. These Trenchers are artists, veterans, and street performers, a veritable Harlem Re naissance in the Carnegie Hall of their subterranean homestead. They live off things that others throw away, and they recycle others garbage into art, others trash into furniture. And in this City of Brotherly Love, where a guy down cant get his broth er to spare a dime, they have welcomed all comers no questions asked since they first laid down their beds. Until, one day, they were told that their home didnt matter at all, that someone had sold their land for a dollar a single, solitary dollar! without ever asking their opinion. And so the Trenchers decided to take a stand. London Packard, their erstwhile leader, tried to get a meeting with Tatum Zillias, but s/he was turned down cold, shuttled off to make her/his case to the sites domineering, heartless construction manager, Emerson Turnkin. Emerson, who as far as this reporter could discover had never so much as visited the Trench community, was well known for derogatorily referring to the Trenchers as Mole People or street scum, and the meeting was little more than
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an excuse for Turnkin to unload her/his vitriol on them. S/he would not even stop the construction activities long enough to let the Trenchers come or go from the main entrance to their home in the early morning and late evening, letting work continue while they skittered around the site, seeking cover, in clear violation of OCIS regulations. And when London contemplated the simple, non-violent act of sitting in, s/he faced certain arrest at the hands of Turn kins goons, or maybe another of the many construction accidents befalling her/him. So s/he went to war with the army s/he had: a peculiar but likeable vet, Arty Dent, to engage in what Arty called Operation Turtle. Operation Turtle was as simple, and ineffective, as the people who launched it: acts of graffiti and simple sabotage efforts which worked only momentarily. Then came Zillias. Zillias history for cutting corners is as well-known throughout the construction industry, and with her/his back up against the wall, this time was no different. S/He blew the lid off of all safety protocols and procedures, added a second shift and, a few months later, even a third shift. Under the breakneck pace, the site itself became an utter mess. Even the shiny windowpanes of Franklins Trenchs faade could not deflect the light from shining down and seeing what was really going on beneath the surface. From a former crane operator on the site, who wished to remain nameless in this article but who was recently let go when she refused to go along with Zillias wishes, I learned that the driving force behind Zillias cavalier attitude is a bonus that was offered by the City and HUD for getting the project done before October 31, 2012. A friend at City Hall got me a copy of the contract, and clear as day, there it is. This deadline, by no small accident, runs right in line with the upcoming elections and clearly is as much a political move as much as it is a financial carrot. And what was the result? The crane operator also told me that this construction site is the most dangerous one she had ever worked on, and that Zillias has everyone in her back pocket. Apparently, Zillias has bought off all of the union bosses to get them to ignore safety protocols and abuse the workers compensation system. Rumors even flew that OCIS itself was on Zillias payroll. Small wonder, then, that Franklins Trench has had more reported injuries than any other construction site in Philadelphia over the past 50 years! According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, at all construction sites in the United States in 2011 there were 5.6 injuries per 100 full-time Franklins Trench worksite injury - Credit: Reese Dentner construction workers. At Franklins Trench, that ratio is an astonishing 15.7 injuries per 100, nearly three times the national average! And these are the people being trusted with lifting the largest roofing panels in the citys history, weighing millions of pounds each, into place in the middle of a dense resid ential area, right over the Trenchers home. So where is OCIS? When contacted officially by philly.com, OCIS Senior Inspector Quinn Baxter said only that the site is constantly monitored, and that there were fewer serious injuries there than the statistics showed. Baxter also stated that OCIS has no responsibility for protecting the Trenchs existing residents, and that the site has not had a single red flag sufficient to stop work there. An OCIS spokesperson said that they were confident that the site was safe, even with the big lifts coming up. And what about the City? What about the Mayor, or City Council? Who is standing up for the Trenchers? No one. Not when you might get a picture with the President out of it.
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Last week, the City asked for more information before it allowed the big lifts to proceed. For London Packard, it was a moment of hope. But according to this reporters sources inside City Hall, the letter that Project Z received was just a request fo r paperwork. As the mayors spokesman told me, Philadelphia is proud to be the home of such a path-breaking housing development, and the Mayor is committed to green buildings like this one. Then she said that she is confident that the lift s are safe. They will be approved this week. Tatum Zillias is an easy villain for the Trenchers, but the truth is deeper than that. The City is turning a blind eye, the workers are knowingly putting themselves at risk, and even the federal government is providing absentee oversight. When something catastrophic happens at Franklins Trench, and it certainly will, someone will be the scapegoat. But in reality, there are far too many to name who should all share the blame. We used to be a country where the government respected its people, where property owners could breathe easy, knowing that they were safe in their beds from the tyrants at the door. But it is ignoring veterans like Arty Dent, who now openly talks about trying to take down the crane that is placing the lid on the coffin to his community. Can you blame him? Would you do any less to save your home?
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